


Send in the Clowns

by Skarla



Category: Gundam Wing, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen, Parallel Universes, Post CATWS, birthday present fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-01-24 11:44:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 31,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18570802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skarla/pseuds/Skarla
Summary: Clint Barton had a secret, one that he had been carrying for so long that it didn’t even really seem like a secret anymore.  It was just another thing in the long list of things that he didn’t talk about, along with his time in Korea or that mission in Budapest.  The trouble was, now that Shield was in tatters with every third agent loyal to Hydra and being hunted like the rats that they were, his helpful support system had evaporated along with his second favourite bow and his salary.





	1. Chapter 1 - 2014

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Scarly13](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scarly13/gifts).



> Birthday fic for Scarly13! I hope you enjoy. Your friendship is one of the awesome things in my life that I can see stretching until we are both crocheting side by side in orthopaedic armchairs.
> 
> This is set post CATWS in the Avengers timeline and Endless Waltz is not a thing in the Gundam Wing Timeline.

_Clint wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand and peered around the elephant carriage. The teenager opted that he’d done enough, it looked all right to him at any rate. No piles of droppings, and the enclosure smelt of clean straw. Sally the elephant was currently standing in the stream to the left of their campsite with her trainer, splashing in the water and generally enjoying herself as she trumpeted loudly and sucked up water with her trunk to douse her own head and Chutra's._

_Clint peered across to the tiger trailer, where he could just make out a shadowed figure sitting between the two big cats, gently petting their ears. “Are you done?” he called across, leaning his hot forehead against the cool metal bars._

_“Just about, why?”_

_“I wanted to see if we can work a William Tell into the act and you’re the only one who’ll stand still enough.”_

_“Just because I let Cathy throw knives at me doesn’t mean I’ll let you point a bow at my face,” his friend objected, but Clint could see that he was preparing to leave the tiger enclosure, so he quickly jumped down onto the dusty grass, already yellowed and patchy although the Circus had only arrived two days before. The Oregon sun beat down on everything, bleaching his hair almost white, but he didn't own a hat and even if he did, he'd probably loose it._

_He couldn't keep the grin from his face as his new friend approached. Trowa had only been with the circus for a month, but he was the best thing that had ever happened, in Clint's opinion. Clint had been with the Circus for as long as he could remember, his aunt was one of the acrobats and he had long since given up on asking her what had happened to his mother. They had moved from the rock to the colonies and back again over the years, and as Clint had grown he had become more and more involved in the show. Discovering a talent for trick archery was only the latest in a long line of circus tricks he had tried his hand at, from juggling with the clowns when he was very small to swinging around on the trapeze. Everyone worked at Carsons, but at least they never went to bed hungry._

_Trowa had appeared out of nowhere just as spring was melting into summer, driving a big green truck with a freaking Gundam laid out in the bed, and asked if they'd consider sheltering him. He'd turned out to be a pretty good acrobat himself, and he didn't flinch when Cathy threw knives at his head, impassive green eyes half hidden behind a painted clown mask._

_Clint thought that having Carson's harbour a fugitive pilot was the coolest thing ever, even if it did mean the adults muttering amongst themselves more than usual. Still, more than half the troop were from the colonies, and all were united in opinion against the current regime - it had to go._

_Most of that went over Clint's head though, he was happy shooting his bow and learning about Mobile Suit maintenance and repair whenever Trowa needed a hand. They'd been on Earth for six months so far, and he hadn't enjoyed winter at all, but now that the sun seemed determined to shine day after day things weren't so bad._

_He pulled his bow from where he'd stashed it under the trailer, and lead the way towards Trowa's lorry. The pilot didn't have a trailer like the rest of them, but there was a tiny narrow bed in the roof of his truck, and he had some basic supplies stored in a crate by Heavyarms' head. Clint had set up his practise targets beside the truck bed, so he could be ready to lend a hand if Trowa needed him while he was training._

_It would be the most awesome thing ever if Heavyarms could be part of the show, but Clint knew better than to even suggest it. The Gundam was a secret, it had to be, and if it came out then OZ's soldiers would come down on them in a heartbeat and either kill or imprison them._

_"Trowa?" he asked as the older teen folded his arms fifteen paces away, a green apple balanced precariously on his head. A question had been rumbling at the back of his mind for days now, and here, alone but for the chirping crickets, seemed like the best time to ask it._

_"What?"_

_"Can we be brothers?" the pilot quirked an eyebrow at him and he felt compelled to elaborate. "I hate my surname, I'd rather have yours." It wasn't strictly true, but it was true enough. He didn't fit, his name belonged to a man he didn't remember and the one time he had tried to approach the topic with his aunt she had walked away._

_Trowa was silent, so Clint drew back and aimed carefully, his shot piercing the top of the apple, which Trowa caught as it tumbled from his head._

_"Trowa Barton isn't my name, you know," he said as he pulled the arrow from the fruit. "I don't remember my name."_

_Clint shrugged. "It's the name you wear now. Names are just things that other people give you, they don't mean anything."_

_Trowa looked up at him with a slight smile that was as big as a grin on his usually expressionless face. "All right then, brothers. Do you want to make a blood pact?"_

*

Clint woke with a gasp and rubbed trembling hands over his sweaty face. The air con in his apartment was broken again, and the summer heat of New York stifling. That was the only reason he had had the dream, he reasoned with himself. It was the heat, throwing his mind back to that summer in Oregon. His gaze caught on the fine scar in the centre of his palm, mirroring his lifeline, and for a moment his throat tightened with unshed tears.

Clint Barton had a secret, one that he had been carrying for so long that it didn’t even really seem like a secret anymore. It was just another thing in the long list of things that he didn’t talk about, along with his time in Korea or that mission in Budapest. The trouble was, now that Shield was in tatters with every third agent loyal to Hydra and being hunted like the rats that they were, his helpful support system had evaporated along with his second favourite bow and his salary.

He had options of course, every agent over level 6 had options, they just weren’t going to get him to where he needed to go. He had been hiding out in his Bed-Stuy apartment for the better part of a week, but that wasn't a long term plan. Natasha was busy down in Washington defending their actions, and he wasn't sure what had happened to Steve or Bruce or that guy with the wings he had seen on the news, but the need for backup was itching in the back of his mind. There was one Avenger who was usually easy to find, and they might even be able to do something to help him, so over hot coffee and stale pizza for breakfast, he decided to take the plunge and confide in Tony Stark.

The confession didn’t go exactly as he had planned.

“I’m fine, Stark,” he grumbled, blinking as the engineer shone a penlight into his eyes. “I don’t have concussion, I haven’t had a stroke and you don’t need to scan for a brain tumour, seriously. Look at the video footage I brought you, please?”

“It’s just a little much to take in,” Tony said, finally accepting the USB drive Clint was holding out to him. “I thought your brother was called Barney and lived a life of petty crime in France, and now you’re telling me you want me to help you make a phone call to another dimension? Just how long have you been with Shield anyway?”

“Five years or so. They didn't want to loose track of an 0-8-4.”

"And in all that time, they didn't figure out how to phone other dimensions? Frankly, I'm disappointed in their science teams. Still... I think this is one that I'll need to call in the big guns for. Specifically, the big brain that comes with the big guns. J, where is Thor?"

"Mr Odinson is currently in New Mexico with Doctor Foster."

"Connect me."

After a moment, the familiar drone of a connecting phone echoed through the labs.

"Yellow," said a muffled voice, and after a moment a dark haired woman chewing on a twizzler flashed up on one of Tony's many holographic screens. "Stark raving mad! How are you?"

"All the better for hearing your dulcet tones, Pinky. Can you put Brain on the line? I've got a treat for her."

"Sure thing," Darcy said, stepping away from the camera. She returned a few minutes later with a short, distracted woman wearing a pair of scratched goggles brandishing a soldering iron.

"Doctor Foster!" Tony said cheerfully. "I have a present for you." He reached behind himself and dragged Clint closer. "Birdbrain here has just seen fit to confess that he travelled here from an alternative dimension. He has some footage of his arrival, and like E.T. he would like us to help him phone home. "

A slightly manic grin spread slowly across Jane Foster's face as she took in Clint, and the archer had to suppress the urge to gulp. Darcy reached over her shoulder and plucked the soldering iron from her lax fingers just as her shirt began to smoke.

"I'll be there as soon as I can get a flight," she promised.

Tony waved a dismissive hand. "Get to the closest Airport, tell JARVIS the deets after I hang up, he'll make sure the Stark Jet is there to meet you. I have scans to make, I'll send copies of the data to a tablet that you'll find on the plane. See you soon."

Darcy shouldered her boss out of the way, still chewing the twizzler, now intent on her phone. She started reeling off addresses and ETAs for JARVIS, and Tony ended his section of the call, turning back to Clint with a considering look.

"Into the chair, Legolas. We've got some Science to do."

Two hours later Clint was still stuck in the lab while Tony muttered to himself over the results of the scans that he'd taken. He wasn't allowed to leave, in case Tony needed to take a second reading or wanted him to corroborate something, so he amused himself with reviewing a schematic of the Iron Man suit.

"Why don't you use synchronizers in these joints?" he asked, catching Tony's attention.

"Huh, what? Oh there? Because there isn't room."

"There is if you shift the reinforcement into a diamond pattern."

Tony frowned and abandoned his keyboard to walk over and peer over Clint's shoulder. "Oh. Yeah, I guess that could work. Since when do you know about engineering?"

Clint shrugged. "I had a dream this morning, must have shaken some things loose. My brother was teaching me about Mobile Suit maintenance."

Tony rolled his eyes. "All right, I'll bite. What's a mobile suit?"

Clint grinned at him. "A fifty foot tall metal robot. The armies of the Alliance used them to subdue people, mostly. They were also used in construction, especially in space."

Tony gave him a distinctly suspicious look. "Fifty foot tall," he repeated.

"Yup," Clint confirmed cheerfully. "Well, not all of them, there are different classes and categories."

The engineer rubbed a hand over his face and sighed. "I think maybe you'd better tell me a little more about your Universe."

*

Their plans for interdimensional communication were derailed when Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson arrived in the foyer of the tower several hours before the jet was due to land. Clint and Tony were just about to call it a night and catch a few hours of sleep before Jane, Thor and Darcy arrived, but JARVIS' announcement made them both sigh and redirect their steps to the communal floor.

"What do we even know about this Wilson character?" Tony grumbled as the elevator carried them smoothly upwards.

Clint shrugged as he stifled a yawn. "The project he was involved with was on SHIELD's radar, but I think the Para-jumpers that were involved in it were all standard military, so at the end he would have just been discharged."

"Hm. Ok. JARVIS, can you do a background check please? Compile a file on him and share it with the rest of the team." He bristled at Clint's raised eyebrow. "What? I'll give him the dossiers on the rest of us if he decides to join the boy band."

Clint nodded his acceptance of the plan as the elevator slowed and the doors opened onto the communal level, where the two newcomers were standing in the kitchen. Steve was chewing his way through a gigantic bowl of granola despite the late hour, while a tall, dark skinned man Clint recognised from the news reports chugged a glass of water.

"Welcome to Avengers Tower," Tony announced as he strode into the room, Clint on his heels. "What brings you by?"

"Needed a place to regroup," Steve said. As Clint got closer, he saw the lines of exhaustion carved into the Super Soldier's face, although you couldn't tell he was tired from his rigid posture.

"It all went to shit down in Washington," Sam drawled, offering a hand to Tony, and then, when he was ignored, turning to Clint. Clint shook the man's hand and tilted his head towards the engineer.

"Don't mind him, he doesn't like to be handed things. Nat is still in Washington, right?"

"Yeah, she's holding the fort down there," Sam confirmed. "We're chasing ghosts, needed a break before this one burnt himself out," he explained, jerking his thumb towards Steve. "Thanks for the hospitality, Mr Stark."

"You did say mi casa es su casa," Steve reminded him, still steadily working through what must have been half a box of cereal.

"Your floor is all made up, sheets and shit, and you have a spare room," Tony confirmed. "Go nuts. Thor, Foster and Darcy are inbound, we were about to hit the hay. Uh..." he glanced sideways at Clint, obviously unsure whether or not he should admit his revelation to the newcomers.

"Might as well tell them," the archer shrugged. "No point in keeping secrets now. Although they look pretty beat, it could probably wait until the morning."

"Tell us what?" Sam asked around a yawn.

"It can wait until you've had some sleep and can process it, it's complicated and it's hardly life threatening," Clint decided. "We can put a fancy presentation together and everything. I'm off to bed. Night!"

He headed back to the elevator, ignoring Steve's half-hearted protest. He knew that Tony had stocked the tower's residential quarters with ridiculously high thread count sheets and comfortable mattresses, and he intended to take full advantage of both.

*

Clint had half expected to be summoned by JARVIS at the crack of sparrows, but it seemed that sanity, or possibly Darcy, had prevailed and he managed to wake up naturally instead of being jolted awake by an alarm. He slipped his hearing aids in, thinking wistfully for what was probably the thousandth time of the cybernetic audio enhancements that he'd be able to get his hands on if he could just _get home_ , and headed to the main floor for some breakfast after finding out that the kitchenette in his apartment hadn't been stocked.

Steve was peeling an orange at the counter, dropping the skin onto a place of toast crumbs to his left.

"Morning Cap. Sleep ok?"

"Morning. Not bad thanks. What did you want to tell me last night?"

Clint decided that toast was as good an option as any, especially as Steve hadn't got around to clearing up yet and the bread was still out on the counter. He popped two slices in the toaster and poured himself a mug of coffee from the carafe that Steve must have made.

"I was planning on telling Wilson as well," he pointed out as he waited for the toast to pop.

"If I may," JARVIS interjected. "Mr Wilson is currently on his way to the common area."

"Thanks JARVIS. We'll just wait for him to get here then," Clint decided. He turned his attention back to his breakfast, searching through the cupboards for the peanut butter he was sure had to be in there. No way was he having strawberry jam on toast for breakfast, he wasn't five years old anymore.

The door to the stairwell opened as he was buttering his toast, Sam spuriously peering around the doorframe.

“This is the right floor,” Steve told him, doing a poor job of hiding his smile. “Grab a coffee, Clint was about to tell us about this mystery of his.”

“It’s not a mystery,” Clint grumbled, sitting at the table and taking a bite out of his toast. “It’s just my life, man.”

Steve looked a little shamefaced at that, rubbing one oversized hand over the back of his neck. “All right. Not a mystery. What did you want to tell us?”

Clint took a large swing of his coffee and wondered where to start. Tony had thought he was crazy after all when he’d first explained yesterday. “Ok this might seem a bit odd, but please remember that Tony is on board and that means that the Science backs me up, alright?” Sam slid into the seat beside Steve with a mug of coffee and both men fixed him with intent expressions. “I… am not from this universe. I was born in a parallel world, a universe where, after the moon landing, humanity took the idea of space travel and ran with it. As far as I can figure, my world is around 200, maybe 250 years ahead of this one, technologically speaking.”

“All right,” Sam said, twisting his coffee mug between his palms. “How did you end up here?”

Clint took a bite of his rapidly cooling toast while he thought about how best to answer that particular question. “There was an explosion that must have… ripped something. That’s what the SHIELD techs concluded from the data they had and the info I was able to give them. I was an 0-8-4 when I was blasted into this realm back in 2009, and after 6 months or so they made me an Agent, partly to give me something to do and partly to keep an eye on me.”

Sam frowned. “Just how old are you?” he demanded, dark eyes searching Clint's face.

“Twenty. I came though at 15.”

It was now Steve’s turn to frown. “And they had you doing missions at 16? What was Fury thinking?”

“Probably that he didn’t know what else to do with me,” Clint said honestly. “I couldn’t exactly go to a regular school, and I had some transferable skills.”

“Why tell us this now?” Sam asked, finishing his coffee and reaching into the fruit bowl on the centre of the table for a banana, to Steve’s obvious disgust.

Clint shoved the last of his toast into his mouth and washed it down with coffee. “Because SHIELD is gone, and I still want what I’ve always wanted - to get in touch with the people I left behind, to let them know I’m ok... To go home if I can.”


	2. Chapter 2 - AC-201

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And now we find out what Trowa has been up to since the war.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've decided that the cruising speed of the Peacemillion is around 5,338km/h. If you're interested in space travel in GW as it applies to real life at all, I'm using [this](https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Locations-of-the-five-Earth-Moon-Lagrangian-points-namely-where-the-Earth-and-Moon_fig1_228781180) diagram to base the journey times/locations on. L3 really is out there, isn't it?

Night watch was easily Duo’s favourite time. It was the smallest watch of the three that Howard set aboard the Peacemillion, and something about the solitude of the night as they hurtled through Space towards whatever job Howard had decided to pick next was soothing to his battered psyche. Essential stations were manned by a skeleton crew, the hangars were silent and he usually had the bridge to himself, although their state of the art autopilot, programmed by yours truly, didn’t need a huge amount of oversight.

He wandered into the canteen in search of coffee at 0300 ship’s time with three hours to go, and was shocked out of his cheerful humming to find that he was not alone. Trowa Barton, real name still unknown and he hadn’t bothered to choose another, was sitting with a gently steaming mug in front of him - one of he nice things about crewing such a large ship was that the artificial gravity was on all the time - looking as if the weight of the Colonies was resting on his slim shoulders.

After a moment’s deliberation, Duo kept on course for the automatic coffee machine. If Trowa was still in the canteen by the time he had a mug of caffeinated goodness then he would sit with him, if the other pilot wanted a little privacy it would give him an opportunity to slip away.

He was a little surprised that the opportunity hasn’t been taken when he turned with a steaming mug of his own and saw that Trowa was still sitting there, but he followed through on his plan and slid into the seat opposite.

“I didn’t think you drank coffee,” was as good an opening line as any. He wasn’t Quatre, he wasn’t going to immediately dive into asking what was wrong.

“It’s hot chocolate.”

“Hn. I didn’t realise we had hot chocolate on board.”

Trowa’s visible green eye crinkled a little. “I have a secret stash,” the other pilot declared solemnly.

Duo nodded his approval and sipped at his black coffee, enjoying the thread of warmth that spread through him. Man, space was cold. “Can’t sleep?” He asked after the silence had gone on for long enough. “I thought you were on the middle shift.”

Trowa shrugged. “Something like that. He lifted a hand to rub at his eyes and Duo spotted a photograph that had been hidden by the curve of his forearm lying flat on the table. Two figures, again the familiar striped background of the big top at Carson’s. One was obviously Trowa, from the characteristic sweep of brown hair, but Duo didn’t recognise the slim blond that was standing next to him.

“Clint,” Trowa offered, seeing where his eyes had fixed. It was obvious from the way Trowa said his name that Clint had been someone special. Duo reached across the table to flip the photo around. Clint was a little shorter than Trowa, with sandy blond hair, a freckled snub nose and a wide grin. He had a wooden bow held loosely in one hand and a quiver of arrows with colourful fletching protruded over his shoulder

“Who is Clint?” He asked, figuring that Trowa had as good as come out and said that he wanted to talk about it when he had offered up the name.

Trowa chewed at his lip for a moment, and Duo felt a little honoured that the usually stone faced pilot was being so open with his emotions in front of him. “Clint was… like a little brother to me, while I was in the Circus. I had never been… I had never had anyone look up to me the way that he did. It was… I miss him,” he haltingly explained.

“Where is he now? You could take some leave, we can make a pit stop in the general vicinity,” Duo offered, sure that Howard would listen if he put a quiet word in.

“He vanished,” Trowa whispered, staring down at the photo. “Five years ago. The others at the Circus assume that he’s died but there was no body. He wouldn’t have run off, he had no where else to go. Besides, he loved it there.”

Duo wasn’t sure what else there was to say. He knew that Trowa was as aware as he was that during a war, people often vanished, much to the sorrow of those left behind. He was about to open his mouth to change the subject when Trowa spoke again, so softly that Duo had to strain to hear him over the background hum of Peacemillion’s engines.

“It’s stupid but… he has Heavyarm’s private frequency. I keep on checking the logs, expecting him to call.”

Once the war had ended, Quatre had opened up one of the Winner satellites to the other pilots. It had been officially decommissioned, but remained a listed holding of the private company and as such anything stored there was protected from general meddling. It had been the last united thing that they had done, stashing their Gundams on the satellite before going their separate ways, Heero and Wufei into the Preventers and Winner into the office. Duo had been a little surprised when, after the Peacemillion had dropped Quatre on L4 and the other two on Earth, Trowa had chosen to stay with the Sweepers. He had fitted in well from the start, stoic and good with both machinery and improvising.

"We can take one of the short range shuttles and check on the Gundams if you want?" Duo offered. "I think we'll be in range next week."

Trowa shook his head. "I've got a remote connection tied into my laptop, there's no need to go there in person."

Right on cue, the monitor strapped to Duo's wrist buzzed, flashing up the code he had selected for 'interesting shit in the vicinity'. "Duty calls, wanna come check it out?" he asked, extracting himself from the table. "Something's pinged inside of 8000 klicks."

Trowa trailed him as he took the most direct route back to the bridge, his hot chocolate and Duo's half forgotten coffee in his hands. The braided Pilot flushed a little when he realised that Trowa had picked up his drink as well and doubled back to take it. "Shit man, thank you. Completely abandoned the caffeine."

The bridge was mostly as he had left it, only now one of the monitors was flashing up an amber data feed. Duo slid into the chair in front of the console and took a swig of his coffee, his eyes tracking down the screen.

"Looks like a private shuttle of some sort, judging by these readings," Trowa concluded over his shoulder. "Specs are wrong for a commercial cruiser."

"I concur, buddy. Let's see if any of the external cameras can pick it up." Duo pulled up the feeds from seven different cameras on the starboard side of the ship and started adjusting the algorithm to turn the different feeds into one coherent image before he ran it. Trowa sat in the seat next to him and pulled up first the communication program to check for any broadcasts, and then the private vessel registry.

"Let me know if you can make out a name or a serial number."

"No problem. Can't make out any life signs, support seems to be in standby or broken. Hopefully they evacuated."

"No distress beacon has been set, so it was either quick or planned."

"That's a comfort."

In the years since the war, the Sweepers had been busy clearing up the debris from space battles, sorting, recycling and selling what they could. The thousands of mobile doll fragments they had collected so far had been melted down into girders and panels for colony repairs, their weapons dismantled and their thrusters incorporated into the latest courier shuttles that the Sweepers were fabricating on L2-27988X and selling to the ever shifting mess of logistics corporations that operated between Earth and the colonies. There hadn't been all that many actual ships that they'd had to deal with, so every instance stood out on Duo's memory. The strange silence, broken only by the hiss of the O2 scrubbers in his suit, the twisted frozen bodies killed by unexpected decompression. Worse, the ones that had made it into their suits, who had obviously lived for hours if not days after the original attack, waiting for a rescue that never came.

Duo shuddered, and then had to suppress a flinch when Trowa reached over to lay his hand briefly on his shoulder. "Don't think about it," he advised.

"Easier said than done," Duo muttered, but he tried to put his memories back in the lock box they belonged in and focus on the algorithm in front of him. "I think I'm there," he announced, hitting the key to run it and sitting back to stretch. His coffee was now lukewarm and he grimaced as he swallowed the last of it. Waste not want not.

Two pairs of eyes watched intently as multiple images were layered together on the screen. "IV-DS-30691?" Duo guessed as the stencil on the side of the shuttle took shape. "Is that a 3 or an 8?"

"I think it could be a 7 rather than a 9," Trowa objected. "The cross bar looks like a shadow to me."

Duo shrugged. "Run all four versions and see if we get a match," he suggested. "Makes more sense than arguing about it, and it'll be faster than me trying to clear that image up further." While Trowa ran the database searches, he started the laborious process of changing the Peacemillion's route from the route to L4 Howard had set when they left L2 32 hours ago. A silent shuttle was usually worth picking up, no matter who it belonged to, and he was confident that Howard wouldn't yell at him for the decision, although the old man might have a thing or two to say about Duo not waking him up before he made it.

"We can probably go out in a couple of the modified Taurus' to shunt it into the cargo bay," he said as he typed in the calculations. "Matt and Shen have been asking for some more flight time, this'll be a perfect opportunity for them to get some practise in. Nice and big and unlikely to go boom, unlike the mobile doll fragments."

Gathering the more hazardous battle debris was a task that Howard oversaw zealously and none but the most experienced pilots were allowed to climb into one of the twelve Taurus suits on board to tackle it. The suits had been modified after the war, their beam rifles and laser guns stored away in case of emergency, and instead they now wielded what had originally been beam sabres, now recalibrated to be precision cutting tools, and improved armour. The crew had found out the hard way that even years after the battles had ended there were plenty of mines to avoid out in the debris fields, it was one of the many reasons that the clean up was being left to the Sweepers. Right after the war a number of companies and entrepreneurs had wanted to get in on the action, but after the first few months the sheer number of accidents that had taken place had caught the attention of the press, the unions and the politicians, and one by one they had either folded or moved on to better things.

Still, the mess remained, making travel between the colonies more hazardous than ever. For the first two years the Peacemillion had focused primarily on clearing up everything that was on a direct trajectory to hit a colony, and now they were methodically clearing the rest one segment at a time, while still turning a tidy profit in fabricated and recycled parts.

"I think I found it. IV-DS-80691 matches the specs, and it hasn't logged into a checkpoint since the middle of the war. Originally from L3, so I don't know what it's doing here."

Duo checked the time. "We have 51 hours before we reach the edge of the L4 cluster, we're in the middle of nowhere here, and L3 is what... Six days away?"

"Given the top speed of this junker more like ten," Trowa said, reading through the registered specs of the ship. "Unless whoever owned it did a lot of modifications it's a lot slower than the Peacemillion."

"Well, it's not that far off our course. We'll start slowing down in 30 minutes, so I'd better go wake Howard up before the change in engine pitch does and he comes and yells at me." Duo studied Trowa's face for a long moment, noting the darkening shadows under his eyes. "Maybe take a nap? ETA is two hours, and there'll be an amount of faffing before we'll actually be ready to suit up, I'm guessing it'll be three, maybe four hours. You might as well attempt to get some rest."

Trowa nodded reluctantly and pushed away from the console. "I guess I'd better," he agreed. "I'll take the mugs back to the galley, you get the Captain up to speed, rendezvous in the hangar at 0700?"

"Sounds like a plan," Duo grinned, holding out his hand for a fistbump that Trowa returned with a long suffering look on his face before they parted ways.

*

Duo used the auxiliary thrusters of his chosen Taurus to kill his forward momentum once he had drifted within arms reach of the mystery shuttle’s primary airlock. He reached out with the suit’s left arm to grasp a handy rail firmly, leaving the metal fingers in a secure fist around the bar before deploying two magnetic tethers. Confident that the suit wouldn’t drift away without him, he started the process that would suck all the cockpit air back into the holding tanks and secured the helmet of his pressure suit.

Once the instrument panel indicated that complete vacuum had been reached he opened the suit and drifted out, triple checking his own tether line as he did so. The bright lights of Peacemillion illuminated the airlock, casting crazy three fold shadows across the sides of the shuttle. The hatch had a simple manual dial, but he checked it for booby traps regardless. Space travel caused a lot of paranoia, in his experience.

Once he was reasonably sure that he wouldn't be blown backwards into open space with a perforated suit, he braced himself against the hatch and began to wind the airlock door open, puffs of space dust floating around him as he disturbed the controls.

#Don't bother trying to repressurise the thing# Howard transmitted to him. #According to the readers there's not enough power, must be a fault with the solar panels#

The airlock eventually opened and Duo pushed off carefully, making his way into the ship. He activated the suit's magnetic boots and fell to the deck with a thunk before he investigated the inner door for traps.

#How does it look?# Howard asked.

"Don't be impatient, old man," Duo teased. "Looks ok so far, pretty standard. Did Perry manage to dig out any details on the owner?"

#Not a sausage# Howard grumbled. #Which is suspicious in itself. Be careful. The standard blueprint indicates that the airlock should open into the main access corridor#

Duo concluded that the inner door was also safe to open and began to spin the handle. "I'll head to the bridge," he decided. "Once I've confirmed that the ship isn't a danger we can get it moved into Hangar B and work on it while we're on the move."

#Hangar B? You just want it close to your quarters so you can poke around. It'll go in Hangar F#

"Aw, Howie, that's half a klick away!" Duo protested as the door finally swung open. He stuck his head through and stared around in astonishment. "Uh, Howie?"

#Yes, brat?#

"This isn't a corridor."

The inner airlock opened into a yawning black void, and Duo belatedly flicked on the helmet lights of his suit. They were reasonable, he'd upgraded them a few months ago, but they weren't strong enough to penetrate to the other side of the compartment. It looked like the entire shuttle had been gutted to make room for a twisted layer of cables and hoses. There was no clear floor space to be seen under the mass, so he turned off the magnets and drifted into the room in free fall, aiming for a ceiling handhold at the edge of the light's range.

#What is it then?# Howard demanded sharply.

"I'm not sure if it's a giant heap of scrap or... Wait." The pile seemed to be peaking in front of him, rising several meters from the floor, and some sort of structure had started to peek through the thick cables below him. "There's some sort of crazy machine in here Howie," he reported back to the ship. "I'm pretty sure it's off, it's pitch black in here and the ship wasn't pressurised." He reached the hand hold and brought himself to a halt, pleased that he could now see the other side of the chamber. The wall was scorched and in places looked like it had melted. "Whatever this machine did, I don't think it worked as planned," he told Howard. "There was a fire or explosion of some sort."

#Can you make your way to the bridge?# Howard asked. #We can investigate your mystery machine once you're safe back on board.#

"Making my way to forward," Duo reported, pushing off on the handhold but keeping his body close to the ceiling. He drifted across the main bulk of the machine, idly trying to figure out what on earth it had been for. It didn't look like an engine, although it had a fairly hefty coolant system, and it wasn't obviously a weapon. It could have been a bomb, but he spotted at least ten different points where it was linked into the ship's mainframe, so that also seemed unlikely. A bomb wouldn't need that many.

An access corridor to what was left of the shuttle loomed up out of the darkness, and above it stretched a row of heavy duty plexiglass viewing windows. They cut the light oddly, but he could just about make out tables and a row of monitors. Sheets of paper floated like soaring birds, obscuring the visibility as he peered through the distorted surface of the frozen windows, but he couldn't see any bodies.

He pushed down to the corridor entrance, activating the magnets in his boots once he was close enough and landing lightly. The corridor was short, and ended in a door that someone had helpfully painted 'Bridge' on using a stencil. "Found it," he reported back to the Peacemillion.

#Watch out for traps# Howard reminded him unnecessarily. Rolling his eyes, Duo completed his checks and, finding nothing obviously deadly, proceed onto the bridge. The space was full of shadows, partially illuminated by the Peacemillion's spotlights cutting through the viewing ports. There was an empty pressure suit hanging by the door that made him flinch, but the bridge was as deserted as the rest of the ship. He settled himself in the central chair and surveyed the displays in front of him. "If I were an emergency power override, where would I be?" he mused.

#Try to the left# Trowa advised over the coms. #Most people are right handed, so they put the non-essential back up systems on the left#

"I personally think power is pretty essential, but I like your logic 03," Duo cheerfully retorted, scanning the panels to the left of the seat. "Got it!"

#Was it on the left?# Howard asked.

"Yes, T-man was right. Three points to Trowa."

#I'll be happy with one#

The ship slowly came to life around him, emergency lighting flickering on and bathing the bridge in a sickly green glow. More than half the instrument panel was displaying red warning lights, and the life support station had 'WARNING: Pressurisation Error' displayed on all three screens.

"I think there may be a hull breach somewhere, we'll need to watch out for that when we're getting her inside the hangar."

#Copy that. I'll brief Matt and Shen. Moving to channel 22# Trowa broadcast.

"Channel 22," Duo repeated to confirm that he'd heard. The mainframe had finally finished booting up and he was soon busy scanning through the system, checking the manifests for anything especially dangerous on one screen while running a diagnostic on another. "There are some really strange things in this manifest Howie," he said as he scanned down the list. "Moon rocks, three crates of quartz crystals, two drums of pressed olive oil - the real stuff mind you, not synthetic, there's a note. Nothing that'll blow up Peacemillion though, I think we're good. There's a hull breach on the starboard side, but it's not big enough to cause explosive decompression, and we should be able to patch it."

#Crew manifest?# Howard asked.

"Three souls, two lifepods but only one has been taken. The lifepod is the Gamma spec so it would have seated two, I suppose they could have jammed three in there if they didn't have time." Duo really hoped that that was the case; he didn't want to stumble across a corpse hidden in a corner. He was no stranger to death, but that sort of encounter was enough to make his usual nightmares take on a twisted edge. There but for the grace of God... "Making my way back to the airlock now."

He checked his air out of habit, idly noting that he had already been on the ship for a whole hour. It really hadn't felt like that long. The trip back to his Taurus was uneventful, although as he drifted over the strange machine from the other side he saw what they had wanted all of the quartz for, it was set in a strange spiked halo around the edge of what looked like a metal coffin set into the right hand side of the machine. By the time he had spotted it he'd already kicked off for the ceiling handholds and it was too late to change course and indulge morbid curiosity, he would have to wait until they had the shuttle safely docked in Peacemillion.

He flicked onto channel 22 while he drifted his way across the large chamber. "I'm exiting the shuttle in a few minutes," he reported. "Are we ready to start manoeuvring this beast into the hold?"

#Shen is just getting into position# Trowa reported. #We should be good by the time you're back in the Taurus#

"Awesome."

Duo reached the airlock and reattached his abandoned tether, using it to reel himself back towards the Taurus rather than walking over using the suit's magnetics. Zero G was faster in any case and there was no point in wasting power. The Taurus was just as he'd left it, and it didn't take long to slot himself back into the cockpit and repressurise the small space. He switched the internal coms over to channel 22 and removed his helmet and gloves, checking that all systems were green before disengaging the magnetic tethers and wrapping his fingers around the controls.

"All right! Let's do this."


	3. Chapter 3 - 2014

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We find out what happened to Clint! Along with a little breaking and entering.

"I thought I'd time travelled." Clint explained, amusing himself by seeing how many screwdrivers he could balance on his fingertips while he answered Jane's questions. "It took us ages to figure out the whole different universe thing, mostly because I didn't have the best schooling back home so my ability to cross reference significant events was patchy."

Jane nodded and Darcy scribbled down notes. "How did you figure out that you hadn't?" the brunette asked.

Clint flipped the five screwdrivers up into the air and caught them in his other hand. "There were three things that clued us in, all to do with the moon. The first guy to walk on the moon had a different name, the Queen of England at the time of the moon landing is called Elizabeth here, in my universe her name was Catherine. The last one was that construction of the lunar base should have started within 50 years of the moon landing, but here that hasn't happened. There are probably thousands of other differences, but those were ones I could confirm."

"Ok, cool. Freaky but cool," Darcy decided, pushing her glasses up her nose. "How about how you got here? Was it an explosion, a wormhole in space, what?"

"Ok, the Circus was in transit, moving from L1 to L4." Clint remembered the rush of moving, the grumbling of discontented animals as they were shuffled into the shuttle that they had rented for the occasion. They were always talking about buying their own shuttle and fitting it out properly, but it was a large investment and the Ringmaster was still working towards both getting everyone on board and pulling together a down payment. One of the lions had been sick and Clint had been sent on a quick run to the nearest vet clinic for some additional pain medication and anti-nausea injections while the rest of the equipment was loaded in. He could still remember the acrid antiseptic smell of the vet's office, the strong chemical cleaners barely covering the stench of blood and faeces that seemed to cling to the place.

"I'd been sent to run an errand, I had just got back to the L1 port... No, I'd made it through customs and I was looking for Bay 17. Everyone was a bit nervy, there were Oz forces massing and we wanted to get out of there. Things were supposed to be calmer over at the L4 cluster and we were hoping that we could set up there for a few months, maybe even wait out the rest of the War. Winner corp own most of that cluster and they pay pretty well, so the Circus always did quite nicely there."

"Winner corp?" Stark asked. "Sounds like they blow their own trumpet a lot."

"No, it's a surname," Clint explained. "It's a company somewhat like Stark Industries. The Winner Family own a lot of mining satellites, mobile suit production factories, hospitals and things. One of those big corporations that you sell your soul to for life, but they do take care of the workers. It's much nicer on L4 than on L3."

"What's on L3?" Darcy asked, chewing at the end of her pen.

"L3 was launched by Russia, it's somewhat like communism in space," Clint explained. "I think we're getting off topic."

"Aww, but this is interesting!" Darcy protested.

"Communism doesn't work," Tony muttered as he ran the latest version of the scanner he'd invented over Clint's body for the third time that hour. "That's been proven, it just ends in misery. Hm... But in an enclosed environment like a space station? The variables would be different I suppose."

"Anyway," Clint interrupted. "I was at the L1 port, looking for Bay 17, and I never made it. Someone jabbed me with something - I remember a sting in my neck and feeling cold. Then I woke up here."

Jane frowned. "That's it?" she demanded. "That's all you remember?"

"The rest of it is a fuzzy nightmare," Clint explained. "Nothing clear, I think I was drugged. I was thirsty a lot of the time - the docs who checked me out this side said I was dangerously dehydrated and risking kidney damage. There was a bracelet thing clamped to my arm, but it was inert."

Tony perked up. "You didn't mention that before!" he exclaimed. "Where is it? Oh wait, don't tell me, SHIELD has it."

Clint nodded. "It's not like I had any emotional connection to it," he protested. Tony shot him an unimpressed look. "It should still be in a small research base around Seattle, near Microsoft."

"We can go get it," Tony decided. "JARVIS, get the Mark 28 ready for me buddy. Jane, Darcy, you make a start here on detecting this other Universe - we can't talk to it until we can find it after all. We need a name for it. Clint and I'll go recruit Spangles and his new friend for a road trip. Not that we'll be taking the roads."

"Call it the AC Universe," Clint suggested. "It's as good a name as any."

*

Steve and Sam were happy to help out, although as Sam pointed out rather grumpily, they were supposed to be on down time. Clint personally wasn't sure how much down time Steve was up for, the man was practically vibrating out of his skin. He made a point of inviting him into the co-pilot's chair of the quinjet, claiming that the constant bickering between Sam and Tony would give him a headache and that he needed some quieter company.

"So," he said once the autopilot was engaged and it was time to relax. "Things were pretty rough down in D.C. How are you doing?"

Steve stared out of the window for a long moment, tension evident in every line of his long frame, before sighing and slumping back. "I found out I was working for the bad guys. My best friend tried to kill me. A normal Tuesday."

Clint snorted. "I've been on the other side of that I guess, when I tried to kill Nat. It wasn't pretty. Lots of guilt."

"How did you deal with it?" Steve asked, focusing his wide blue eyes on Clint. He had a small scar under the left one that the archer hadn't noticed before. Perhaps it hadn't been there before.

"Well, she's Russian, so there was vodka and cursing Loki and then more vodka," he grimaced, remembering the hangover the next day. Natasha had made him an omelette before she disappeared. The console pinged to let him know that they were out of range of the nearest flight towers and he reached up to activate the cloaking mechanism on the jet.

"Back in your world," Steve said slowly. "Is there... I mean, will there be someone waiting for you?"

Clint bit back a sour laugh and shook his head instead. "They all think I'm dead, Cap. There's no one waiting for me. They'll have moved on." The thought made his stomach turn, but he'd come to terms with it some time during his second year with SHIELD. The circus, his family, none of them would have any idea what had happened. He'd never made it back with the medicine, they would have waited for as long as they dared but the rising unrest on L1 would have eventually pushed them away towards the relative safety of the L4 cluster. His friend Trowa had already moved on at that point, his last message had been that he was heading to the Moon base, chasing ghosts.

"But I'm sure they'll be pleased to see you."

Clint didn't want to sit and listen to Steve spitting out the standard platitudes. He'd hoped to get the man out of time to open up a bit about Bucky and where his head was at, but the conversation had been neatly turned back on himself and his problems. Steve was sneaky like that. Still, the big lump was sitting there, expecting an answer, and there was something freeing about confessing all these secrets that had been bottled up inside him for so long.

"There's a guy. I was a kid, hell, he was a kid himself, but... I want to talk to him, to tell him that now I get it," Clint said slowly. It didn't matter that his words wouldn't make much sense to his companion, the point was that the thoughts were out there now, hanging in the universe rather than stabbing into his heart. "I understand the shit that he was going through a lot better now, and it's changed me, but I still consider him my big brother. It was a fucked up situation and people did fucked up things, but that doesn't make the people monsters."

He dared to look at Steve, only to find the man looking back at him with wide eyes. "Your world sounds like a bit of a train wreck," he said solemnly.

Clint didn't bother holding back the laughter this time. "Cap, you have no damn idea," he declared once he had caught his breath again.

"What did your friend do that meant that you only understand him now?" Steve asked. "Does it have something to do with those giant robots you were telling us about?"

Clint nodded. "He was maybe a year older than me - he didn't remember his birthday - and he was a pilot. It would take too long to explain the politics of the time so I'm not going to bother - we'll be over Washington in another half hour at this speed. I see your disapproving face over there, are you going to tell me that you never knew of an underage soldier in World War 2?"

Steve closed his mouth over his protest and looked intently out the window. "I guess," he said reluctantly. "But that was war-"

"And we were at war," Clint cut him off, fists clenched. Steve stared at him for a long moment, and then nodded, his gaze dropping to the whitened skin over Clint's knuckles. The archer sighed and offered Steve an apologetic grin. "I don't mean to snap, there's a reason I haven't thought about this much these past years." He tucked one leg up against his chest and rested his chin on his knee. "I don't even know who won. Or if he's still alive."

"It's different for me," Steve said after a long moment of staring out the window. "Bucky and I were soldiers together, we understood war in the same way, or I thought we did. Maybe he always protected me a little from the darker edges of it. But now I know it's different, it's black ops or whatever you want to call it, and I want to tell him that I understand that it will have changed him, but that I don't care. That he's my friend - my brother - and he didn't have a choice and I accept what he had to do to survive."

Clint did his best to hide his astonishment and smile encouragingly instead. "I'm sure that when you get a chance to tell him that in person, that it will help."

"How did you end up in the circus?" Steve changed the subject, watching intently as Clint programmed a slight course adjustment into the nav system to avoid a cliff face favoured by paragliders.

"I'm not entirely sure, I was too young. My aunt is an acrobat, and the clowns incorporated me into their fooling around as soon as I was old enough to follow the routines and remember the cues."

"So, clowns and archery? That's pretty cool."

Clint nodded, but tumbling with the clowns wasn't what stood out when he thought back, and he hated to admit it but SHIELD had taken what had been a showy skill and honed his archery until it was a deadly precision art. He missed the trapeze the most, when he allowed himself to think about it. The smell of the chalk and the musty canvas of the big top, the harsh smack of flesh on flesh, the creaking of the bars as they swung through empty space. Horsing around in the SHIELD gyms or throwing himself into desperate parkour moves as he chased after a suspect just wasn't the same.

"Bucky dragged me to the circus once, when we were kids," Steve remembered. "I don't know where he got the money from and I probably don't want to. We fed peanuts to the elephant and wasted pennies trying to win this rag doll for Bucky's sister. The game was probably rigged, most of them were, right?"

"Probably should get back there and review the base layout with the orders," Clint suggested. "I'm cool, I've been there before." He needed to get his head in the game, not explain the finer points of circus games to Steve. The games at Carson's had never been rigged in any case, they were just tricky, apart from the ones designed for small children. Unwieldy projectiles and small target areas was all you needed to keep the punters coming.

Steve nodded and headed back to where Tony and Sam were pouring over a map of the facility and bickering cheerfully. The Ironman armour stood sentry in the corner and Tony was dressed simply in jeans and a faded Nirvana t-shirt. It always amused Clint to see how utterly normal Tony looked outside the armour, although he knew that Pepper had been trying to get him to consider wearing something at least vaguely protective under the suit. Still, this should be a simple smash 'n' grab mission, provided that Hydra didn't get in the way. And as they'd have no idea of knowing that they were coming, they should have the element of surprise on their side. Should.

He remembered that the base had had a small helipad on the roof. "JARVIS, can you please run a check on the local airspace database to see if there have been any registered aircraft landing on site?" he asked.

"Certainly, Agent Barton," the AI responded promptly.

"Thank you."

He wondered, not for the first time, how someone as erratic and rude as Stark had managed to create such a polite, dependable AI. It seemed to be something of a contradiction. One of the secondary screens flicked from a power readout from the solar panels installed on the wings to a list of flight manifests, thankfully brief. It looked like no one had visited the base by air in the last six months.

"Hey birdbrain, the OAP says that you've been here before. Clear something up for me - what the hell is this room? I think it's a bunker and the red cross over there thinks it's a swimming pool." Tony jammed a tablet under his nose, the area in question highlighted in hot pink.

"You're both wrong, it's a giant freezer," Clint told him, once he'd zoomed out a bit.

"What? Ok, that I hadn't considered. Fair enough. What would they need a freezer that big for?"

Clint shrugged. "Testing equipment for the arctic? Storing body parts? Your guess is as good as mine, I'm not a scientist."

"Let's hope it's the first one, frozen bodies give me the heebie jeebies."

Clint landed the quinjet on the roof and kept the cloak activated while Tony used JARVIS to hack into the building's systems. Steve and Sam were busy checking their equipment in preparation to leave the relative safety of the aircraft and after a moment Clint joined them. All Tony needed to do was step into the suit after all, he could be fighting ready in seconds.

"They don't seem to have noticed us, can't tell if they're Hydra or not," Tony reported. "So... Do we want to attempt to be legitimate and then kick ass if the situation calls for it, or do we want to sneak in?"

"I'd rather Hydra not know what we were trying to do," Clint said after Steve and Sam had both shrugged. "Even if we defeat them, they'll know that we were here and they can figure out what we took. My universe has enough problems without neo-Nazi's finding their way in. I mean, they'd probably be gunned down by the first Leo they came across, but their ideology is poisonous."

"Nothing more dangerous than a fanatic," Sam agreed.

"Stealth is not my strong suit," Tony admitted. "I may be more help in here if we're going for discreet, I've got a backdoor into the security system and I can help you move through the building undetected."

"All right. Clint, you take point as you know where you're going, Sam and I will be on your six and Tony can provide backup from here. Any objections, questions or concerns?"

There was mutual head shaking. Clint switched his hearing aid to the comms setting and took two extra knives from Natasha's stash. It never hurt to carry extra.

*

After all the preparation, the raid on the base was something of an anticlimax. The base was manned by a skeleton staff, who mostly lived on the ground floor, with the upper levels mainly used for storage with a few scattered laboratories, and the more sensitive experiments being confined below ground in the basement. Clint remembered going up stairs to a windowless storage room next to a laboratory and a basic hospitality suite that he was kept in for the first few weeks after SHIELD had picked him up. It wasn't hard to find his way down from the roof to a corridor on the third floor that seemed familiar, and Tony assured them that the guards had just done a sweep and were on their way back down, not scheduled to return for another hour.

The storage room was locked, but JARVIS quickly took care of that for them, fooling the system into thinking that Sam's handprint belonged to Nick Fury in a move that clearly amused Tony from the snickering that leaked through the comms. Clint wouldn't give Tony the satisfaction of admitting out loud that it had been a clever move, the engineer had a big enough ego as it was.

The storage room came with an archaic desktop computer already on and unlocked, showing a database that detailed the contents of the room. "Any idea what they would have called it?" Sam asked as he took charge of the computer.

"Try a date," Steve suggested. "When did you come though?"

"Uh... April 2009? Not sure which date."

"That should be enough," Sam assured him, filtering to entries in April and June 2009. There were only 17, and it didn't take long to figure out that Clint's mystery hardware had been stored in Row D, rack 5, shelf 2.

"How are we looking on security, Ironman?" Clint asked as he followed Steve into the dusty racking, leaving Sam to wipe all traces of their presence, both physical and digital, from the computer.

"Peachy, you have approximately 35 minutes before the next sweep."

"Roger that. We should be back inside fifteen."

Rack five was close to the back of the room, and Clint could feel the dust tickling at his nose as they walked between the racks. He ruthlessly suppressed the urge to sneeze, and was glad that someone had gone nuts with a label printer at some point, for every rack was labelled neatly along the left hand side of the shelves. Shelf two was the second from the top, and contained a single cardboard box. Steve reached up to lift it down and Clint pulled a throwing knife from his arm sheath to slit the tape.

The flaps opened to reveal a bracelet of twisted metal and jagged white crystals soldered into place with copper wire. There was a small viewscreen in the centre of the mess with a crack across it.

"Is this it?" Steve asked quietly, and Clint nodded, turning so that Steve could tuck the device into his backpack. A few seconds later the box was back in the same place on the shelf and they were on their way back to Sam, who had finished with the computer and was crouched by the door to the corridor, waiting for them.

"Pieces of the puzzle are coming together," Tony muttered into the comms. "I'll have JARVIS start warming up the Jet, see you in five."

Ten minutes later, still safe under the clock, they were speeding across the Cascade mountains back to New York. Tony was already video chatting to Jane, using the high definition cameras in the suit to scan over the bracelet.

Clint was surprised when Sam slipped into the seat next to him instead of Steve. He hadn't quite managed to get a proper read on the newcomer yet, although their recent espionage had reassured him that if nothing else, the man was committed and seemed to have their backs. Steve trusted him after all, which was a point in his favour.

"Sorry to drag you out of your downtime," he offered after a moment.

Sam shrugged. "As missions go, that was a cakewalk. Hell, I've had a harder time obtaining actual cake."

"Bakers in Washington can be viscous," Clint agreed solemnly.

"I, ah, caught a bit of what you were saying to Steve earlier," Sam said casually, leaning back in the co-pilot's chair. "About your brother, and what he wants to say to Bucky if we ever find the man."

"Oh?"

"I was pleased to see that some of my therapy talk had sunk in - him I mean, not you," he was quick to qualify. "Loosing a brother is hard."

Clint stared at the power gauge for a long moment. The solar panels were just balancing out the power drain from using the cloak. "Who did you loose?"

"My wingman, Riley. Found that I couldn't do the job without him, it just wasn't the same." Sam sighed deeply. "Sorry man, this wasn't meant to be a pity party or anything. I just... I dunno."

Clint looked at him out of the corner of his eye. "Team bonding is important," he said in his flattest voice. As he'd hoped, Sam snorted with laughter.

"I'll say. Your partner, Natasha. Does she know about the whatdidyacallit, the AC universe?"

Clint shook his head. "Not exactly. She knows something is up, but for a long time I didn't want to talk about this. FURY said that SHIELD were working on contacting home, it was all very hush hush, but when Nat put the data out on the net, well, I checked it of course."

"Not good news?"

"Worse, it looks like they hit a dead end around the time they entered me into training. Fury was lying to me the whole time, the project was shelved before Christmas 2009."

"Fury doesn't strike me as the most forthcoming person," Sam said diplomatically. "Still, that had to hurt."

Clint shrugged. "I'm an Avenger now. And if Tony can pull one out of his arse? I don't know, I'll decide then. But I don't want to be a SHIELD agent any more."


	4. Chapter 4 - AC-201

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back in the Gundam Wing Universe, Duo and Trowa uncover clues and end up with even more questions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I now actually have a plan and the rest of the plot worked out, yay! Which is why we now have a total chapter number. I hope you enjoy this latest instalment!

Once the rogue shuttle IV-DS-80691 had been safely manoeuvred into Hangar F (much to Duo's disgust) and safely locked down, it was time to move. They had lost several hours with their mystery detour and Howard wanted to get the massive ship back on course as quickly as possible. Although he was now running on grit and caffeine, Duo was determined not to leave Trowa to investigate the shuttle alone, and the taller pilot seemed intent on doing just that as soon as they'd finished running the typical post-vacuum diagnostic on the Taurus'.

Stifling a yawn, he lengthened his stride to match Trowa's as they dodged around the Sweepers that thronged the main corridor, most heading for the canteen. Rotation 14 was always gumbo day, and Duo was a little sad to be missing it. Still, he had a ration bar in the pocket of his cargos to stave off any hunger pangs and rotation 14 would come back around again soon enough.

"What's the hurry?" he asked as he dodged around a group of mechanics.

Trowa glanced down in surprise, as if he hadn't realised that Duo was shadowing him, and dropped down from his headlong rush into more of a casual stride. "Sorry, I just... Something is nagging at me, I feel like I've seen the shuttle before."

"With or without the nightmare octopus machine?"

"It doesn't ring any bells."

But then, it might not. They both knew that Trowa's memories were unreliable; far too many knocks on the head and traumatic events. It was a miracle that he wasn't down for the count with post-concussion syndrome. It was a miracle that any of them were functional at all when so many other MS pilots were looking to spend the rest of their lives being cared for in the plethora of institutions that had sprung up after the war.

Duo took a moment to thank the developers of Deathscythe for the cutting edge shock absorption system they had installed into his buddy.

Hangar F was one of the hangars reserved for smaller projects, so there wasn't a huge amount of room around the shuttle. Just enough to manoeuvre a Taurus if one was careful. The shuttle was listing a little to starboard, the docking struts damaged - probably in the same explosion that caused the hull breach. It wasn't quite bad enough to justify setting up a support sling before they entered, but it could make navigation inside a little interesting.

"Best suit up," he suggested as Trowa made a beeline for the airlock. "Just in case." The taller pilot froze for a second, but then turned smartly on his heel with an amused look on his face. "What?" Duo demanded.

"Just never thought we'd see a day when you're the sensible one," his friend murmured, bright green eyes crinkled with amusement. "Something of a role reversal."

"Oi," Duo protested out of habit, unable to suppress his grin.

They climbed into the environmental protection suits that came with a basic particle filter over their nose and mouth and covered every inch of their bodies in a layer of protective plastic. There was even reinforced padding at the knees and elbows, and a basic monitor that linked remotely into a station at the entrance to the hangar.

The Nightmare Octopus Machine, or NOM as Duo had started referring to it, was far harder to navigate on the ground. Climbing over the tangle of cables and hoses that slipped and threatened to loop around their boots and trip them wasn't the easiest exercise, and Duo was panting and wishing that he'd spent more time in the gym by the time they got to the corridor that lead to the bridge. They had attached a magnetic spot lamp over the airlock door to provide some illumination, but were relying mainly on the shoulder lights fitted to the suits.

"That can't have been the way they got around," he complained as he caught his breath. Trowa, he was disgruntled to see, had apparently been taking his gym time seriously and was hardly winded.

"Over there."

Duo followed the gesture and spotted the remains of a walkway, now lying in a twisted heap below the scorch marks on the wall. "Huh. Guess that would have been easier, once upon a time."

Trowa shrugged and lead the way forward. Duo had left the doors open behind him on his way out of the ship, so their progress forwards was considerably faster this time, secure in the knowledge that there were no booby traps and no dead bodies waiting for them. Trowa looked around the bridge, and then turned his attention to the three doors at the back.

"One of these has to lead to the observation room above the machine," Duo reasoned. "There were a load of papers in there, which seemed strange to me."

"The ship has artificial gravity," Trowa pointed out. "Maybe they were working on something they wanted kept off the net."

"The ship is a closed system, they didn't have to connect to the net if they didn't want to," Duo argued. "Paper just seems like a strange choice."

"Doktor S used paper."

It was Duo's turn to freeze, studying what he could see of Trowa's face carefully. "There's a name I haven't heard in a while," he said carefully. "You thought you recognised the shuttle, does it remind you of him?" Trowa shrugged again and Duo bit back an unfair comment comparing him to Heero. "Let's get these doors open," he said instead. "Maybe there'll be a clue in the papers."

The doors to the observation deck took a little more effort to get open than the door to the bridge, thanks to the slight lean to starboard putting uneven pressure on the metal. Between the two of them they managed to wrangle the magnetic lock and worked together to shove the reluctant panel open. "That settles it," Duo grunted as they pushed it the last few inches. "Most secure door so far, the treasure must be in here."

"You've been reading too many novels on night shift," Trowa teased as they stepped into the room. The floor was covered in a thin layer of paper sheets, some obviously print outs and others handwritten notes or rough diagrams. A lot of them seemed to be parts of the machine in the room below. Duo stooped to gather up a double handful, scanning them in the torchlight.

"Anything interesting?" Trowa asked, moving further into the room to peer through the observation windows, pulling a small high power spot light from a pocket and using it to illuminate the room.

"I think we'll be able to figure out what the machine does. Well, maybe not us, but someone with smarts. Good view down there?"

"The coffin thing in the middle looks like the focal point for whatever this is." Trowa turned and began gathering up the papers into a loose stack. Duo copied him, and they met in the middle of the room, where there was enough room on the end of the workbench to deposit the sheets.

"All right. I'd like to boot up the machines in here, but there's no juice in the batteries to speak of and I don't want to link an unknown into Peacemillion's systems without further checks, even if it's only power. Suggestions?"

"We could see if there's a fuel powered internal generator," Trowa suggested. "We could unhook the nightmare machine from the power before we do it, I think there's enough information here for us to figure out how to do that."

"Ok, order of importance then. First we finish exploring the ship. Then we figure out how to unhook the NOM from the power. Then we power up everything else somehow. If the computers don't have many answers, we go through the paperwork, if we're still in the dark we just start dismantling and recycling. Sound ok?"

"Sounds good to me."

They left the observation deck to check the other two doors into the bridge, which were equally as hard to open as the door to the observation deck. The first one lead to a head, which Duo had half expected, and the second lead to what had probably been some sort of meeting room previously, given the upgraded wall panelling, but it had been retrofitted into a four man bunk. Neither of them had expected the manacles or the jumble of medical equipment scattered across one of the beds.

"What the hell?" Duo asked, picking up one of the cuffs and examining it closely. "I think there's flash frozen blood on these."

"How many crew?"

"Three souls, one two person lifepod ejected," Duo recited. "I'm getting more worried about the third person, Tro. Maybe we should sweep for bodies."

Trowa dropped a depleted IV bag onto the bed. "Nutrients and a sedative," he reported. "I agree, let's sweep the ship."

They spent three hours going over the shuttle with a fine toothcomb, but found nothing. The engine room at the back appeared to be fully functional, and the main problem seemed to have been a massive electrical surge and the explosion that had melted a hole in the starboard side of the hull. They found a small hydrogen power bank in the back, complete with seventeen fuel cells, but no bodies.

"Well, it's not that I'm not glad that we don't have a corpse, it's just a bit strange," Duo grumbled as they reviewed the diagrams of the machine. "I think most of the power ports are to the back of the ship, which makes perfect sense. Did you want to cut them or take the time to disconnect properly so it'll be easier to reconnect later?"

Trowa raised an eyebrow at him. "You think it's likely that we'll need to use the, uh, NOM?"

Duo shrugged cheerfully, leafing through his fourth stack of papers. "Can't make a final decision until we know what it's... For." He trailed off, staring at the photo he had unearthed from the sheaf. It was an image of a young man, shackled wrist and ankle with what seemed to be the manacles they had found in the bunk room. He was blonde, covered in bruises and looked oddly familiar. "T-man, why do I think I know this dude?" He held out the photo and flinched back as Trowa snatched it out of his hand. "Hey!"

Trowa was panting harshly enough to move the air filter over his face, his shoulders hunched defensively as his eyes darted all over the image. "That's Clint."

It took Duo slightly longer than he was comfortable to admit to before he connected the dots. In his defence, he had been awake for about thirty hours at that point and it was starting to feel like his eyes were full of sand. "Your blood-brother buddy Clint?"

Trowa nodded.

"Well, shit. Let's get the machine disconnected, then we can boot up the computers and see if we can figure out what happened to him-" Duo cut himself off when he realised that Trowa was shaking minutely, the photograph in his hand trembling in the still air. "Tro? You ok?"

Trowa made a move as if to rub his forehead, but he only hit the reinforced plastic of the suit visor. "I... The specs indicate that the machine, it..."

"It's not a coincidence that the thing in the middle is person sized, is it?" Duo asked, a heavy weight settling into his empty gut. Trowa shook his head slowly, and Duo made a snap decision. He was good at those, the fact that he was alive was testament to that, no matter what the others said. "All right. We're taking a break, we've been in here for hours." He held up a hand when Trowa looked up in protest. "No. C'mon, this is going to need a clear head. This is important, I get it, but it's not time sensitive, and it's important enough that we need to be on top of our game when we're looking into it. No mistakes, nothing that could hurt our chances of finding out what happened to Clint. Ok?"

"All right," Trowa agreed slowly, and Duo decided then and there to lock Hangar F with his personal code so that Trowa couldn't get back in without him. "Meet back here in nine hours?"

"I'll meet you in the canteen in nine hours," Duo countered. "We'll eat, and then we'll go send a message to L4, make sure Q-ball knows our ETA. Maybe he can help us figure it out."

Trowa nodded, so Duo lead the way back out of the shuttle. It was at least three times harder to clamber over the NOM when he was exhausted, although he had figured out that it was significantly easier if they hugged the walls rather than trying to make straight for the exit.

"Was all this floating around when you came through before?" Trowa asked as they picked their way through.

"No, it must be strapped down in places," Duo reasoned, trying not to trip. "And I'm thankful for that, trying to get through a bunch of floating pipes and cables? Not my idea of a good time."

"Hn."

They finally struggled their way back to the airlock and collected their light. The light went back on the rack, next to four identical units, and the suits were hung back up for next time. "We might not need them," Duo said as he scratched at the flat spots the mask had left on his hair. "But until we're crystal about what the machine does, it's probably better to be safe."

"No complaints. I'll see you in nine hours."

Duo lingered for a moment, fussing with his braid. He wanted to be sure that Trowa had headed off to his bunk before he checked in with Howard and got his ok to code lock the hangar.

***

If Trowa had tried to access the shuttle while Duo was sleeping, he must have decided not to confront him about it. They met in the canteen as planned, each carrying a tray with spacer breakfast gruel, coffee and a small ration of flash frozen fruit on top of waffles. The waffles were made fresh every third day so long as stocks held out, and Duo didn't quite know how the cooks managed to mix three different powders with water and get sheer perfection, but even the waffles he'd had at the fancy school in Sanq hadn't compared to them.

They shuffled onto the end of a bench and proceeded to demolish the food methodically before Duo sat back to sip at his coffee with a groan of approval. "Ok. Feeling more human," he reported. "Did Howie confirm if you're off shift until we get this solved?"

Trowa nodded. "I had a memo this morning."

"Cool. That's contingent on us being useful though, I think we should clear out that cargo hold we found at the back, and move at least ten of the hydrogen cells out of there. They can get catalogued into stores, along with any food rations we find. After that we focus on disconnecting the machine and booting up the computers. Sound ok?"

Trowa waved his hand in a so-so gesture. "I agree that we should get the hydrogen out of there, and about the supplies. But, I think that there might be some sort of shut off for the machine. If they had any sense when building it, they'd want to make it easy to separate from the rest of the ship."

"So, you think we're dealing with someone rational, not a mad scientist?" Duo prodded. "I've been assuming mad scientist levels of recklessness. After all, the machine clearly went wrong."

"Did it?" Trowa asked, looking down at his empty waffle plate.

Duo frowned at him. "There's a hole in the side of the shuttle, Tro. That's wrong in my book."

"There's a container for a human and no human," Trowa countered. "We've seen enough of the drawings to know that someone is supposed to be in there when it's switched on."

Duo shrugged. "Maybe he managed to get out. We still don't know what it's supposed to have done. Not enough data." He swallowed the last of his coffee and picked up his tray. "So let's go get some more."

The main communications centre was next to the bridge, but there was a smaller room for the crew to use to make more personal transmissions, and that was the one that Duo headed to. As well as offering privacy, it also happened to be on the way to the hanger. Duo slid into the main seat which Trowa adjusted the camera to take in both of them while Duo tapped out the hailing frequency that Quatre had given him.

"Any idea what time it is on L4?" he asked as he started pinging the connection.

"No."

"Well, if he answers with 'do you know what time it is?' we know it's night."

Quatre answered within two minutes, looking bright and alert, his blonde hair shining so brightly that the small screen couldn't cope with it. "Duo! Trowa!" He said with fondness. "I was wondering if you would call. I understand that you'll be in the L4 cluster tomorrow? I was going to suggest that we do lunch."

"We might ask to take a little more of your time than that," Duo grinned. "We've got a bit of a mystery that we could use your help with. Can you clear your calendar for a few days for us?"

"I'm sure I can," Quatre assured them, turning aside presumably to check something on another screen. "I have... Three meetings but Iraia can handle two of them, and I can put off the third. Is everything all right?"

Duo turned to Trowa with a raised eyebrow, not wanting to spill the other man's secrets without permission. Trowa looked back blankly for a long moment, and then turned to look at Quartre.

"We can explain when you get here," he said. "There is no immediate danger."

"Q, could you get hold of the others for us?" Duo asked before Quatre could press for more details.

"Heero and Wufei have been on L4 for a month," Quatre revealed. "There's an ongoing investigation that I'm not supposed to know about, so I'd best not mention anything else on an open line. I'll call them. Are you still aiming for L4-Y19053?"

"Yes that's the plan!" Duo confirmed as Trowa nodded.

"All right. I'll see you tomorrow."

Duo and Trowa spent most of the remainder of the trip to L4-Y19053 unloading all the useful supplies from the shuttle onto a series of pallets, which took far longer than they had expected, and disconnecting the machine from the shuttle's power system. Trowa had been correct in that there was an emergency shut off switch, but once they threw it and checked over the power grid they quickly realised that they had a problem. There were five connection points, but two of them had heat welded in the explosion right over the point where the disconnect should have separated the contacts. After studying the problem and arguing for half an hour, they decided to cut the connection at those two points and deal with it later if they needed to reconnect.

The hydrogen bank could be connected to the shuttle's power grid with a single heavy duty cable, and once attached Duo was pleased to find that the lights came on immediately, along with a hiss from the life support systems.

"Best not turn those off," he mused aloud as he followed Trowa to the bridge. "I expect the water outlet from the Hydrogen bank is plumbed into the life support system somehow, that's how I would have done it. If we turn it off it'll either mess with the power or we'll end up with puddles everywhere."

Trowa nodded. "All right. The monitoring system in the Hangar will alert us if it detects any dangerous gasses, right?"

"Might be too late by the time they get to the sensors on the outside of the ship, but the suit sensor array should alert us to anything really nasty close by," Duo confirmed. "Woah." They had reached the large chamber, and it was his first time seeing both the machine in full light and the damage to the starboard hull. The NOM was a towering mass in the centre of the room, the crystals that lined the central pod throwing rainbows around the space in the bright overhead lights. The scorch marks formed a strange spiral on the skin of the shuttle, twisting inwards to a large puncture through the metal.

"That's strange," Trowa said as they stared. "It looks like it blew in, not out."

"I agree, but that doesn't look like any impact damage I've ever seen," Duo sighed. "More things to add to the mystery."

"Your Nightmare Octopus looks a lot prettier in the light," Trowa commented as he started to pick his way across the floor.

"It's still a NOM," Duo insisted stubbornly. "Rainbows or no rainbows."

They had just finished booting up the computers and realised that the reason why they had not been asked for a password on startup was because the entire system was encrypted when the klaxons sounded, letting the entire crew know that they were about to dock at L4. 


	5. Chapter 5 - 2014

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crystal resonance is a thing. Tony says so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry everyone for such a large break in updates, and now that you do have a chapter it's a lot shorter than usual. RL got in the way (my partner is being made redundant and one of our cats died) and I just haven't had the will to write. I haven't abandoned this story though, and I do intend to see it through!

"Why crystals?" Darcy asked, delicately attaching crocodile clips to the exposed copper wire on the bracelet with her bright red nails. "Not that it's not pretty, it just seems like an odd choice to add all the bling."

"So we assume that it's functional," Jane said, her voice muffled by the marker pen lid she had clenched in her teeth. She was scrawling equations onto a large whiteboard that Tony kept on side eyeing with a pained expression. He had offered to show her how to use his holographic boards no fewer than seven times before Jane had finally snapped at him, something about her 'process' and his technology overload making it harder for her to think. Darcy had produced a bag of popcorn from somewhere and watched with a gleeful grin.

She'd shared it with Clint, so he really wasn't in a position to complain.

"Resonance? Is that actually a thing or is it just new age bullshit?" Darcy asked as she set the last clip in place as per Tony's diagram. Tony and Jane both sat up like meerkats, and Clint had to stifle his grin.

"No, it's a thing," Tony said, staring at the bracelet with a considering look. "Do those pieces look like they've been broken off of a larger crystal spar?"

"All crystal looks like that," Darcy objected.

"Scan the crystals," Jane ordered. "Let's get their frequency on file, and add that into the algorithm for detecting the AC universe. We could use the crystal vibration like a homing beacon. It was probably designed to get Clint back again - after all what's the point of sending something to another universe if you have no way of retrieving the data? They must have kidnapped him to use him as a test subject."

"Then something clearly went wrong," Clint interrupted flatly. "As I am still here and the bracelet is broken. I'll be in the kitchen."

He jumped down from the counter he had been perched on for the last two hours and stalked in the direction of the elevator. It was somehow harder to know that he had been stuck here by mistake. He had always thought that he had been a casualty in some sort of explosion, that he'd ended up falling through reality into a different dimension by accident. Tony's theory that he had been a victim of experimentation, that he had been sent to this universe on purpose just to see if someone could make the trip and survive... Well, it made him angry.

But anger wouldn't solve anything, so coffee was going to be the next best thing.

He had hoped to find the kitchen deserted, but Thor was there munching his way through a large platter of eggs, bacon and beans. There was a small stack of toast by his elbow, liberally spread with butter that had melted and dripped down the sides.

"Hawkeye my friend! Come and join me!" The Asgardian invited. "There is plenty for all."

Clint picked a clean plate from the draining board and slid into the seat next to the god, liberating two slices of toast and three eggs to make himself a makeshift sandwich. "Enjoying being back in New York?" he asked as he applied ketchup.

He half expected Thor to monologue about the wonders of Central Park Zoo, but instead he looked crestfallen and a little guilty. "I have enjoyed it very much," he proclaimed solemnly. "And I am loathe to leave it, but it seems that I must. I received a summons last night, I am needed in Asgard."

Clint nodded. "Is it Loki?"

If possible, Thor looked even worse. "Loki is dead."

Clint was torn. On the one hand, he was glad that the being that ripped into his mind and twisted his soul was no more. On the other hand, Thor was a friend and ally, and Loki had been his brother. He settled for the middle ground and asked a question that he really wanted to know the answer to, but he kept his voice as neutral as he could. "How did he die?"

Thor sighed and dipped a crispy bacon rasher into an egg yolk. "He allied with us against the Dark Elves when they attacked our home. He helped in his own unique way, crafting a trick to confuse our enemies that gave me the chance to strike unexpectedly. He fell during the battle."

"So he redeemed himself?" Clint prompted, not entirely sure how he felt about that. If he condemned Loki as wholly evil and unable to be redeemed, then what did that say about Natasha? He resolved not to be a hypocrite and to listen with an open mind. Besides, there were a few things about Loki's short sojourn on Earth that stood out, the least of which was how wrecked he had looked when he had fallen through the doorway. His had not been the face of a triumphant conqueror, for all he had spouted the right rhetoric. Thor had always been sure that there was more to the tale than his brother was telling, and now he would never know. Loki was gone.

A part of Clint that had been waiting for the other shoe to drop finally relaxed.

"He did, in my eyes if not in the eyes of Asgard. But his memory will be fairly dealt with, my father has promised this. No, I go back to the Nine Realms to deal with the unrest caused by lack of oversight. It took too long to repair the bifrost, and now there is turmoil. As heir to the throne, it falls to me to settle this."

"How has Jane dealt with the news?" Clint asked, using the second half of his sandwich to mop up the yellow egg yolk that had dripped out of the first half.

"She has been sequestered in the laboratory since we arrived, I have not yet had a chance to tell her," Thor sighed. "I asked JARVIS to invite her up for food, but he advised that the Do Not Disturb Unless The World Is Exploding protocol was in place an he was unable to relay a message."

Clint rolled his eyes at Tony. "All right big guy, finish eating and we'll go down together," he suggested. "I think they're going to be down there for a while and this mission of yours sounds time sensitive. Better to interrupt them now, it'll be ages before they take a break."

"Lady Darcy usually ensures that Jane takes what she calls 'adequate rest breaks'," Thor protested.

"In the face of interdimensional travel, even Darcy's powers have reached their limit. She's napping on the couch."

Thor frowned. "This must be a truly complex problem. Will you explain it to me while we eat?"

Clint didn't really feel like going through the whole thing for the third time that week, but Thor was almost from another dimension himself, so it probably wouldn't hurt. The god fixed hopeful blue eyes on him as he stuffed an entire slice of toast in his mouth, cheeks puffing like a hamster as he chewed.

"All right, listen close because I'm not repeating this again, ok?"

Thor nodded. "You have my word."

By the time Clint had finished explaining, the food and coffee had been consumed, leaving only dregs and crumbs, and Thor was looking at him with new consideration in his eyes. "I am sorry, my friend, that I feel unable to offer you the assistance of Asgard at this time," he rumbled, looking truly contrite. "Months ago I would have offered the services of my mother, a powerful and experienced sorceress, and years ago this would be a puzzle that Loki would have been glad to immerse himself in, before the madness took my brother's cunning mind away into darkness. Now though, our mages are few, my Uncle Freyr would be my next choice but his realm is one of those in turmoil. I fear that I cannot ask him to split his attention."

"I'm not expecting help," Clint shrugged. "It would have been nice, but some of the finest minds on Earth are already looking into it. Let's get down to the lab and you can let Jane know you're leaving, they've probably thought of some new questions for me by now."

The lab was quiet for once, Jane having fallen asleep at the desk she was using. Someone, probably one of Tony's robots rather than Tony himself, had draped a blanket around her shoulders. Darcy was sprawled on the couch, sleeping with her mouth open, and Tony was hunched over a screen while he muttered his way through complex calculations, circles under his eyes.

"It's going to keep you know," Clint sighed at the state of them. "I'm not going to be offended if you go to bed."

"Science doesn't need sleep," Tony recited, rubbing already bloodshot eyes.

"Is this the device?" Thor asked, leaning over the crystal studded bracelet, now hooked over a thin metal clamp that held it suspended over the table and allowed the wires that Darcy had clamped on to snake their way across to various measuring devices that Jane had brought with her from New Mexico. Clint leant his elbows on the table and nodded, staring at the thing. He knew that his dislike for it was irrational, but logic didn't seem to have a great deal to do with his gut.

Thor leant closer and the movement dislodged a pendant on a fine gold chain that hung around his neck. Clint automatically tracked the movement as the pendant swung forward, clicking against the largest crystal on the bracelet.

***

A bright flash of purple light illuminated the lab and jolted Tony out of the fog of equations he had immersed himself in. "What was that?" he demanded, stumbling to his feet. "JARVIS, sit rep."

"The anomaly was confined to the lab sir. All persons present are uninjured," his AI reported promptly.

"Ok, that's good new. Clint, Thor, what did you do?" He looked at the workbench and frowned when he saw just Thor standing there, grasping some sort of necklace in his fist. "Where's Clint?"

"Gone," the god of thunder said mournfully. "I know not what happened."

"Jane!" Tony screeched. "Wake up!"

"Wha-?" the scientist mumbled as she lifted her head. "I'm up. Good to go. What's going on?"

"Clint vanished in a flash of purple light and from the way Point Break is shifting I think his bling is to blame," Tony declared, pointing an accusing finger.

"Purple? That might be relevant to the crystal frequency," Jane yawned. "What's the necklace?"

Thor shrugged, hesitated a moment, and then pulled it over his head. "It belonged to my mother," he said. "I found it in her chambers after the funeral. I wished to have... Something." He handed the pendant to Jane, who immediately started scanning it with her own personal sonic screwdriver.

Tony planted his ass on the stool across from Thor and folded his arms. "Talk."

"The pendant touched the large crystal, Clint was sitting where you are, with his elbows touching the table."

"Touching the wires?" Tony pressed, looking down at the surface in front of him for tell tale marks. The frequency scanner to his left was warm but there was no smell of burnt plastic.

"I am not certain," Thor said. "I regret that I cannot tell you more. I do not know of the properties of my Mother's necklace, it seemed to me to be nothing more than a fitting memento."

"It's ok, you weren't to know," Jane said absently, reaching out to pat the muscled forearm closest to her. "Why were you down here anyway?"

The blond shuffled his feet. "I came to warn you that I must leave," he said. "I am needed in Asgard on business that cannot wait. I wish with all my heart that the disappearance of our Shield-brother could change that, but it cannot. I must depart soon."

Tony stifled his own reaction in favour of watching Jane first pale and then flush with rage before she exploded into a furious commentary on Thor's attitude towards commitment and his timing. The torrent of words was enough to finally wake Darcy, whose tangled hair was oddly gravity-defying as she tried to discreetly wipe drool from the corner of her mouth. Tony noticed. Tony always noticed.

"What is happening?" she asked, edging around the one sided argument to take the stool next to Tony.

"Thor's mum's necklace activated the bracelet and Clint vanished in a poof of purple," Tony summarised for her.

Darcy glanced at the crystal studded band in the centre of the table with suspicion. "Well, shit."


	6. Chapter 6 - AC-201

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The meeting we've all been waiting for. Eventually.

Duo stood at Trowa's side by Airlock 17 and tried not to fidget. It had been months since he had seen Quatre, and longer since the Peacemillion's schedule had coincided with one of Heero and Wufei's trips around the colonies. They kept in semi-regular contact over email, but Heero had never been the most communicative soul and the only time he had Wufei had been in a position for deep and meaningful conversations they'd had a pressing need to conserve as much oxygen as possible.

"What do you think they'll make of the NOM?" he asked his companion.

Trowa blinked his visible green eye slowly. "Wufei will think that it's a stupid name."

"Do you think it's a stupid name?" Duo demanded, folding his arms.

"I have no opinion on the name."

"What? That's bullshit, of course you have an opinion," Duo objected. "Do you think it's stupid?"

"They're here," Trowa announced, effectively cutting off Duo's rant.

"Did you just start an argument to distract me?" he hissed as the light above the airlock started to flash. He caught Trowa's shrug out of the corner of his eye.

"It worked, didn't it?"

Duo wasn't sure if he was annoyed or grateful so he turned his attention to the airlock and their imminent visitors. Quatre was always so polished and clean that he felt like a stereotypically dirty grease monkey next to him. He countered the feeling by making sure that he showered as thoroughly as possible before meeting with the blond, his hair brushed vigorously and tightly braded, wearing a clean jumpsuit with no stains on it.

Trowa looked the same as he usually did, maybe slightly cleaner and slightly pinker, as if vigorous scrubbing had occurred in the recent past. Duo wondered if he felt the same sort of anxiety when meeting their billionaire friend, but it was too late to ask about it, the door was about to open.

"Trowa! Duo! So nice to see you again my friends!" the blond exclaimed as he darted onto the ship, managing to somehow wrap his arms around both of them at the same time in a brief but friendly hug before the door had even finished opening.

"Good to see you too," Duo managed as Trowa hummed his agreement. Quatre smelt of incense and scented oil and he was worried that he would sneeze. He was thankful when the blond stepped back to let the two Preventers in. Heero and Wufei, both dressed identically in blue and green, offered their hands to shake. Neither of them seemed to have aged a day in the last few years, whereas Duo and Trowa had both gained several inches. It was a surprise to find that he could look over the top of Heero's head with ease, although Duo expected that if things were still the same in another decade he'd feel rather more envious.

"Welcome to Peacemillion. Welcome back, I guess I should say. The shuttle is in Hangar F, did you all get the data burst unencrypted?"

"Yes," Heero confirmed. "We have 48 hours of leave from the current mission to assist you."

"Then let's get started," Duo said as Trowa turned on his heel and started to walk down the corridor. The others hurried to follow.

"Is he ok?" Quatre whispered as Wufei looked concerned. Heero lengthened his stride until he caught up with the taller man and fell into step with him.

"He's doing better than I probably would," Duo admitted. "What we didn't include in the data pack is that the test subject mentioned seems to be an old friend of his from the Circus, a kid called Clint. It's a bigger concern for him than the rather disturbing technology we've found."

"This is not my area of expertise," Wufei said stiffly. "So I will leave speculation as to the machine's purpose to those better equipped."

"I had a look and I think it's a transporter," Quatre shook his head at their quizzical looks. "You know those old Earth vid shows about people beaming through space? They're still experimenting with that now, trying to optimise goods movement between Earth and the Colonies, but there isn't a lot of funding."

"So the theory is sound?" Wufei asked his dark eyes flicking up as they passed the large doors to E hangar.

"Yes, but the calculations don't look right, there's a whole different set of variables, and Duo, the report mentioned crystals? None of the papers I've read have mentioned using crystals."

"So maybe they were up to something else entirely," Duo sighed. "Still, it's a start. Are there any experts on L4 we could call in? Howie's placed a notice on the 'net trying to reach the shuttle's owner to collect the salvage fee, if not we'll patch it up and sell it ourselves."

"What's the time frame on collection?" Wufei asked as they reached Hangar F.

"10 cycles to make contact, 21 to collect. Howie sent the message two days ago, so we have 8 cycles before it's sold, maybe less if the owners get in touch."

"From the sound of things I don't think we really want to give it back to them," Quatre observed with a sigh. "Sometimes I miss the days when we threw the rulebook out the window."

It didn't take long to get everyone suited and booted. Duo used the override panel in the airlock to turn on the lights and hung back to let the three newcomers get an unimpeded look at the Nightmare Octopus Machine in all its glory. Wufei physically cringed, which probably shouldn't have amused him as much as it did, but growing up was overrated.

"Trowa, take Heero and Q-ball up to the observation deck? Quat can look at schematics and the Perfect Soldier can get his teeth into the computer system. Wuffers and I will finish clearing the cargo and see if we can rig up a better way to get across this mess." Trowa started to pick his way across the tangled matt of hoses while the others turned to stare at him with raised eyebrows. "What? Chang said himself that he was out of his depth, so I'm just-"

"It's not that, Duo," Quatre said hastily. "We're just not used to you being the strategist of the group."

"It's a good split, Maxwell," Wufei assured him as his partner started to follow Trowa around the machine. "It was a surprise, that's all. I guess I hadn't really thought about what staying with the Sweepers would mean for you and Trowa."

Duo decided to take Wufei at face value and lead the way to the back of the ship, pointing out relevant landscape features as he did so. "There's the power relays, so watch out, we had to cut two of them. The ends shouldn't be live, but you never know, so try not to kick the plastic isolators off when you go past. There's a sort of workshop back here where I think they fabricated some parts for the NOM. How's your welding?"

"I haven't done much since the war, but I remember how."

"Awesome. You start welding up some platforms on legs then, using the scrap in there, and I'll use one of the suits to carry on clearing in here, give us some more room to work. Howie is a bit odd about non-crew using them."

Wufei nodded, located the nearest welding mask and strapped it onto his head with the face plate up. Once he was satisfied that the Chinese man had everything he would need to fabricate a walkway, Duo headed back out to start up one of the small exo-suits Howard had designed for just jobs like this. More manoeuvrable than a traditional forklift, the suits were like miniature skeletal mobile leos, without the armour plating. The pilot sat in a central chair, above a large power bank, with two hydraulic arms extending from just above their shoulders. The 'legs' were either articulated or tank tracks, depending on the model. Duo favoured one with an insect-like design, one he had invented himself, that allowed him to scuttle over almost any surface without having to pick an 'easy' route - the onboard computer kept the chair balanced on the legs, which telescoped as required. It looked a little disturbing but everyone he had managed to persuade to try it agreed that the easy functionality more than made up for the look.

Wufei was busy welding behind a mobile blackout screen when he made his way back into the ship, but that was OK. He'd be sure to collect a horrified reaction or two later.

They worked until a crack of the ship's intercom caught their attention, by which time Duo had collected as horrified a reaction as he'd ever received to the exo-suit - Wufei had stumbled backwards and fell over with a stifled shriek, fifteen minutes later Duo was still chuckling - Wufei had constructed six walkway sections with legs thin enough to slip between the cables to the floor and sturdy enough to take the weight of all five of them at once.

"We were thinking of taking a comfort break," Quatre voice rang out from the small speaker above the door. "I've arranged for some food to be delivered from my favourite restaurant, it'll be at Airlock 17 in thirty minutes."

"What's wrong with the canteen?" Duo asked rhetorically as he placed the sixth walkway section onto the stack he'd built by the door to the NOM's room.

"Quatre," Wufei rolled his eyes. "He'll have arranged for rooms for all of us as well, if I know him."

Duo froze halfway down to the ground. "Rooms? But... Tro and I live here. He knows that!"

"He'll want to do some sort of reunion dinner I'm sure," Wufei sighed. "At least this is L4 so we won't be expected to get drunk."

"Dinner with you lot? I might need a beer," Duo grumbled as he descended the rest of the way to the deck.

"No banquet in the world goes on forever," Wufei grinned. "C'mon, let's wash off some of this dirt before he sees us and makes that face."

Duo wrinkled his nose, remembering the face Wufei was referring to. It had appeared quite frequently during the war, especially when he had showed up after an infiltration mission splattered in unidentifiable fluids. "Does he still make that face?"

"What do you think?" Wufei asked over his shoulder as he led the way out of the shuttle. There was a small washroom across from Hangar F that they crowded into to wash hands and faces. The welding mask had left a clear band across Wufei's brow that he ended up scrubbing with a hand towel, muttering in what Duo assumed was Chinese as he did so.

"I kinda envied you guys for having second languages," Duo revealed as he watched the procedure with amusement. "You missed a bit by your ear."

"You shouldn't, it's a pain keeping them straight," Wufei retorted, flinging the disintegrating remains of the towel into the waste slot. "Plus it's a whole load of extra schooling and learning a second alphabet. In Heero's case I think there are three."

"Fair point," Duo conceded. They re-entered the hangar in time to meet the others coming out of the shuttle. "Productive morning?" he called across.

"We've made progress," Quatre chirped happily. Duo smiled back automatically in favour of scanning Heero and Trowa for clues - Quatre's eternal optimism didn't make him the best barometer for how well a job was going. Heero was walking with a ninmu kanryou swagger to his step, but if anything Trowa looked more tense than he had this morning. Duo left Wufei's side to fall into step beside his fellow sweeper. "Talk to me."

"We figured out what it was supposed to do - transport Clint into a parallel dimension."

"What? They're real?"

"Heero seems to think so, and Quatre is saying that the maths checks out, Heero agrees."

"Ok. I guess that's better than it being a transporter within this dimension and transporting him somewhere without an atmosphere."

"He was sent inside a space suit, that's the piece of good news," Trowa revealed, chewing at his lip as he glanced sideways for Duo's reaction. Duo was determined to give him a positive one.

"That's awesome," he said firmly. "They definitely intended him to survive, and they gave him the means to do so." He shifted to allow a group of sweepers past, his mind racing through the implications. "It does raise a question over getting him back though," he continued, reluctant to stress Trowa further but knowing that his friend wouldn't be impressed if he held back. "I wonder if there's a way of using the machine to communicate? We can make sure that he's in a spacesuit then."

"There's a whole section on detecting this other universe that Heero is working through on the computer, while Quatre and I focus on the machine. Maybe they did know where they were sending him, maybe Heero will be able to make contact."

Duo grinned up at him, relieved that there was at least a chance that they would be able to ensure that the didn't accidentally suffocate Clint. "Fingers crossed."

There were two men in white aprons each leaning on a polished silver food cart waiting for them at the airlock. Quatre breezed to the front, greeted them enthusiastically and turned to Duo with a gleam in his eye. "Is there a room nearby where we can sit down?"

Luckily for Quatre's sense of propriety, there was a small conference room beside the airlock that was due to be empty for two hours. Duo was a little intimidated to find that the white aproned men had brought real china plates with them and seemed dead set on serving them a three course meal. Still, a look around the table showed him that everyone else was just going with the flow, so he swallowed down his protests and accepted the offered napkin with a polite 'thank you' as Quatre regaled them all with a funny story about one of his younger sisters. At least, Duo thought it was supposed to be funny. Personally, he couldn't quite see the humour - or the point.

Wufei rescued them next by describing a recent group of Preventers recruits making an attempt at the team obstacle course under the supervision of an irate Sally Po, who resorted to chewing them out with increasingly colourful metaphors. "And then the rope slipped, and the leader ended up grabbing Sally's boot and pulled her off of the ledge entirely," Wufei concluded, chuckling. "She tried to save the landing but she still ended up sitting in the mud pool. The leader half fell back down, shouting apologies, and landed on top of her!"

Once they'd eaten and the servers had been escorted off the ship they all worked together to set the walkway sections across the worse of the tangle. It didn't quite reach the door, but with all of them working at it they managed to bridge the thickest sections and laid some additional sheeting to make ramps across the rest.

"What now?" Wufei asked.

"I want to take a closer look at the coffin thing, only it's a bit creepy. Come be my backup?" Duo suggested as the others headed back to the observation room. Wufei nodded so he started picking his way carefully across the floor. "I have a feeling we might end up turning the thing on, I want to check for any obviously broken connectors."

"Sounds like a good idea. What do you know about the guy that got shoved in it? Clint, was it?"

"Not a whole lot," Duo admitted as he balanced on the edge of a heavy duty junction box. "Seems like he was real important to Tro, like a little brother. He vanished during the war so no one looked very hard for him."

"That's rough," Wufei grunted as he vaulted over a thick pipe. "I guess it's worse to find out now that the assumptions were wrong."

"The brooding has been strong these past few days," Duo agreed. "Not that I blame him," he added hastily. "If it were one of my buddies thrown into another dimension I'd probably be worse."

Close inspection of the coffin-like container revealed both the start of the carbonised spiral etched into the wall and a number of melted wires and connectors. Wufei got to work with a reel of solder and a gas powered soldering iron while Duo headed up to the bridge to see how things were progressing there.

"Duo, good!" Quatre exclaimed as soon as he stepped through the door. He pushed a tablet towards him with a bright smile. "Please double check these equations for me?"

"No problem," Duo agreed, picking up the thin computer. Heero was hunched over one of the terminals, lines of green text lighting his face in a sickly glow, and Trowa seemed engrossed in making a sort of jigsaw out of all the blueprints in the middle of the floor.

They worked until Quatre's stomach growled audibly, making Heero jump and Duo laugh out loud. "I think it's dinner time," the blond said ruefully, rubbing his gut. "I'm afraid I'm not used to skipping meals anymore. I made us a reservation-"

Quatre babbled on about the restaurant he had chosen while Trowa and Duo shared a long suffering look behind his back and Heero started setting programs times to run different scripts overnight. Or maybe he planned to come back after they'd eaten, Duo wasn't sure what his work ethic was like these days. During the War they wouldn't have stopped at all so that wasn't a great frame of reference.

"I'll go get the dragon," he said, interrupting Quatre's stream of chatter. "Anyone want to take a bet on how many solder burns he's given himself?"

*

The following morning, Duo eyed the hazmat suits and debated leaving them on the hooks. It wasn't like they'd encountered anything to justify their presence, and it had been days... He felt muzzy headed and not fit for decision making after assault by Quatre the evening before. The determined blond had dragged them to his hotel, pressed a suit of considerably more formal clothes than Duo was used to on each of them and then pushed them into a private shuttle to travel to the restaurant, which turned out to be on the other side of the colony. Duo supposed that he should have been grateful that it wasn't on a different colony in the cluster.

He eventually decided that he should stick to the decision he'd made when he had a clear head and wriggled his way into the suit. Trowa was already inside, according to the access logs he'd arrived three hours before. Fully suited and booted, Duo bent to collect the bucket of breakfast foods he'd collected from the canteen and made his way into the shuttle.

"Special delivery," he yelled as he navigated the new walkway past the NOM, confident that Trowa would be able to hear his voice echoing through the empty ship.

The brunette met him at the top of the stairs, his green eye widening in comprehension as he took in the bucket. Duo fished a bulb of orange juice out and tossed it at his head, and then a second just to see if he'd start juggling. Trowa rolled his eyes but performed as expected, not missing a beat when Duo added the two granola bars and the packs of dehydrated apple slices to the mix.

"Once a performer always a performer," the braided man observed as Trowa switched from a large circle to a complex criss-cross juggling pattern. An exasperated look was all the warning he got before Trowa started throwing things back to him, starting with the granola bars. He made a production out of catching them all in the bucket, and by the end he had managed to win a slight smile from Trowa with his antics. "All right. Fill me in on progress while we eat."

By the time the other three arrived, Trowa had convinced Duo that the next step would be to power the machine up. They understood at lot more about how it worked now, and the sensor array for reading the parallel universe was built into the rest of the NOM. Trowa was confident that they could turn it on without accidentally ripping a hole in the fabric of space-time, or in the side of the Peacemillion.

To Wufei's obvious dismay, Heero and Quatre agreed that there was minimal risk and a lot to gain by powering up the sensor array, so the three of them headed to the back of the ship, leaving Duo and Wufei in the observation room.

"There's not a whole lot of room down there anyway," Duo justified to Wufei. "We'll just be in the way. Can you help me scan through the main computer system? I want to see if we can get any more information on the previous owners."

"I ran the registration through the Preventers database on the way here," Wufei told him, rubbing at his forehead. "There wasn't much on it, although I can confirm it spent a lot of time on L3 in a maintenance bay, probably having the insides gutted to make enough room for the machine."

"Was there a name related to the bay rental?" Duo asked, sitting in the command chair.

"No, a corporation that looked real enough but when I sent an enquiry to them about it I got an automatic reply saying that they were no longer in business."

"Might be another dead end then," Duo sighed. "Ah well, we've technically done all we need to contact the owner already, it would just be good to know what we might be getting into."

"I could ask-" Wufei broke off as a flash of purple light lit up the bridge. Both former pilots abandoned their chairs and sprinted into the observation rooms, Wufei producing a handgun from somewhere.

They skidded to a halt by the windows just in time to see Trowa vault over the thickest section of pipes, ignoring the strange electricity storm that was grounding out all around him, to reach the container and wrench the lid open. Duo tensed, expecting the worst, but Trowa was not thrown across the room, there was no smoke and no blood. Instead the lid gave way with a final crackle of purple lightning and a man with sandy blond hair slumped forward into Trowa's waiting arms.

"...What?" Wufei whispered.

"No idea. Let's get down there. I don't think you'll need the gun. Have you had the gun the whole time?" Duo asked as they raced down the stairs.

"Shut up." Wufei grunted, but he did tuck the firearm back under his haz suit so Duo gave himself a point.

Quatre appeared in the far doorway as they reached the bottom of the stairs, supporting a groggy Heero. "New plan, go help Q," Duo instructed. Heero's hair was even more unruly than usual and Duo suspected that whatever had happened to trigger this, the Perfect Soldier had taken the brunt of it. Wufei made a beeline for his partner and Duo put them out of his mind, knowing that they'd be able to cope. Trowa on the other hand... The brunette had scooped Clint up bridal style and was carefully carrying him over to the walkway. Duo ripped the emergency kit from the wall of the stairwell and plotted a course to intercept.

"Can you hold him a minute?" he asked as he reached them, taking in the pale clammy skin and slight tremor in Trowa's hands as he held onto the faded blue hoodie his friend was wearing. "I think there's some sort of emergency foam bed in here.

The medical kit turned out to be fully stocked, and in a few minutes Clint was lying on a thin mattress - a handy combination of plastic honeycomb and reactive chemicals that when activated turned into marshmallow foam - and swathed in a foil shock blanket. He threw a second one around Trowa's shoulders for good measure. Wufei came back to confirm that Heero was already recovering and to take the bottle of burn ointment from the kit back with him.

He had just finished strapping the vitals monitor to Clint's wrist and was setting up the connection to his tablet when the blond's eyelids started to flutter.

"I think he's waking up," he warned Trowa, who had fallen into some sort of fugue state as he stared at Clint's limp hand resting on his chest. Trowa immediately straightened and learnt closer, the foil blanket dropping unnoticed to the floor. "Careful, we don't know how he'll react."

Clint opened grey eyes and looked around, a line of confusion creasing his brow. "Wha th'" he slurred, before he managed to focus on Trowa. Duo was alarmed to see what little colour he had regained drain from his face. "Tro?"

Trowa nodded, his eyes suspiciously wet.

"And I'm Duo," Duo said cheerfully. "If you know Trowa here you may have heard of me. I'm currently playing nurse, so can you let me know if you hurt anywhere?"

Clint frowned at him, and then reached up a clumsy arm to paw at his ears. "Aids are shot," he grumbled. "Say again slower?"

Trowa and Duo shared a started look. Hearing loss was easily fixable, why was Clint using a pre-colony era electronic assist? Duo resolved to do something about that as quickly as possible, the med bay on Peacemillion had all the equipment needed to fix damaged ears, and from the look on Trowa's face he had already come to a similar decision. "Are you hurt anywhere?" he repeated, making sure that Clint could see his lips.

"Everywhere," Clint replied with a wry smile. "But I don't think it's anything serious. I might risk getting up in a minute."

"Don't you dare," Trowa growled, reaching out to apply light pressure to Clint's nearest shoulder. "We need to take you to the med bay for a full checkup."

"And new ears," Duo added with a grin as Clint's expression shifted from frustrated to anticipatory. "I'm going to see how damaged Heero actually is, you keep an eye on the travelling wonder here. Don't go anywhere!"


	7. Chapter 7 - 2014

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spaceship Time!

Chapter 7 - 2014

  
"Define missing," Natasha hissed down the phone, making Tony's spine crawl even though logically there was no way that she could reach through the handset and hurt him. He suppressed the panic induced desire to blame Thor; the Asguardian had left that morning after repeatedly verbalising his remorse over what had happened. He'd even left the necklace.

"Magic happened," he said weakly, flinching as a sharp snap reverberated down the phone. "But I'm working on it, we are working on it."

"I'll be there in three hours," she said darkly, and then the line went dead.

Tony dropped the handset onto the nearest workbench and allowed himself five seconds to bury his face in his hands and just breathe. Breathing was good, breathing would let him rise above the towering mass of musts and shoulds and maybes that threatened to drown him. Once he was feeling a little more level he raised his head and looked over at Jane and Darcy. "We have three hours to come up with a viable plan," he announced. "Darcy-babe, can you make more coffee?"

"Coming right up Iron-pants. What happens in three hours?"

"Terror descends and if we don't have a good plan our lives may be forfeit," Tony muttered. He looked up to find both women looking at him with wide, concerned eyes. "Black Widow arrives."

"Ah, angry girlfriend," Darcy nodded from her post in front of the coffee machine. "Don't worry Moneybags, we got your back."

"Not actually his girlfriend," Tony corrected her as he pulled up the compiled readings from a ten minute window around Clint's disappearance. "Visible violet light is around 410 nm, right? Or is it 420?"

"400 to 450," Darcy replied, waving her phone at him.

"Miss Lewis is correct," Jarvis added stiffly. Tony grinned up at the nearest camera.

"Don't worry J, you're still my favourite reference source," he assured his AI. "Can you please add that as a calibration factor into Doctor Foster's detection algorithm thingy and see if you get a ping?"

"Need to think of a better name for it," Darcy said lightly as she handed him a mug of coffee.

"Is that really a priority right now?" the frazzled brunette protested as she peered into the inner workings of her latest creation with a small pen light.

"Thanks for the coffee Pinky. Brain, DUM-E could hold that for you if you need two hands. He's pretty good with extremely specific instructions."

Jane looked doubtfully at the articulated claw who rolled up with alacrity on hearing his name, but offered him the pen light. Tony's opinion of her went up several notches and it was already pretty high. She might even be easier to work with than Bruce, not that he would betray his Science-Bro by saying that out loud. They had a similar attitude towards cobbled together machinery.

Speaking of machinery... "We're going to need a ship," he announced. "JARVIS, send me all the files on the, ah, Icarus project, was it?"

Darcy frowned at him. "You named your space program after a Greek Myth about overconfidence?"

"Overconfidence is my middle name." JARVIS projected the Icarus project files for Tony to swipe though, and he was pleased to see that they were slightly ahead of schedule. "JARVIS, how expensive would it be to have this finished in, say, a month rather than six?"

"I will need a moment to calculate that, Sir," the AI warned him, which meant that it was a large number with an even larger list of variables. Tony sighed and spared an eighth of a second to be grateful to the Stark Dynasty for making him filthy rich. "Nevermind, J, just make it happen. Clint's life can't be measured in dollars. Actually, set up a video call to the site manager, I should probably break the news in person."

He spun round in his chair to face Darcy and Jane, who were both staring at him. "Ladies, do I look presentable or shall I wash my face?" he demanded.

"...presentable," Darcy said faintly as Jane continued to gape at him. "Uh, did you really just-"

"Of course I did," Tony sniffed dismissively. "Can't leave Clint wandering around another dimension. He's probably already getting into trouble."

  
By the time Natasha stormed into the lab, trailed by a sheepish Bruce, they had the beginnings of a plan and had caused three panic attacks over at the Stark Industries development base in Nevada. Icarus, which had been rolling along steadily for the past five years since its conception, had started to accelerate to a breakneck pace as deliveries were expedited and Pepper arranged for an influx of Stark Industries staff from other facilities to flood in. The first plane was already in the air, and the second was loading. Tony had decided to delegate that section entirely to Pepper - she had secretaries to cope with the general day to day running of Stark Industries, and she was the best person he could think of to make sure that the project was completed on time and in a manner that wouldn't fry them all on take off.

That left Tony, Jane and Darcy 4 weeks to figure out how they were going to hop a spaceship across dimensions, get a prototype through alpha testing and get it installed into Icarus. Somehow.

Darcy briefed Natasha, paler than Tony had ever seen her with an odd rigidity to her posture that made her usually fluid movements stiff and rehearsed. Bruce pulled up a stool next to Tony as he wrote out the code that would hopefully allow Jane's machines to 'talk' with the Icarus OS and quietly asked JARVIS to display the current task list.

"All right," he said as Darcy finished explaining what had happened with the necklace and was moving on to the spaceship. "I think I'll be better off working with Jane on the theory of interdimensional travel. Coding and engineering are not my strong suits, but I can work out the equations."

"Sounds good Jolly Green," Tony said, looking up for a second to smile at his friend. "Glad you're here."

Natasha ghosted over, her eyes wide and wary. "What can I do to help?"

Tony looked her over as his mind spun through the options. Leaving a twitchy assassin at a loose end would probably end in pain for somebody. "Fancy being Natalie Rushman again?" he asked. "Pepper is flying down to the facility in Nevada where they're building the spaceship, we're accelerating their schedule considerably. We need to make sure that the scientists and engineers have everything they need and are able to work in shifts around the clock to get this done on schedule."

Natasha nodded. "I'll take the quinjet." She brushed a light kiss against Bruce's unruly hair and strode out of his workshop. Tony chewed at his lip for a moment. "J, warn Pep that she's incoming, would you?"

"Certainly, Sir," the AI confirmed.

~ Four Weeks Later ~

Tony felt so calm that he was suspicious about where the panic had got to. Perhaps his glands were malfunctioning? Icarus towered over his temporary workstation, sitting heavily on the thrusters that would push them into orbit. They didn't need to go far, just far enough that they were out of the way of the crowd of satellites currently orbiting Earth. He'd been in Nevada for a week now, ever since Jane had announced that she had got as far as they had time for in the lab and that the series of Frankenstein machines she had dreamed up were ready to be installed. Icarus was powered by a medium size arc reactor and it was one of the most beautiful things he had ever created. Bruce had cried when he had first seen it. Jane had chewed her lip and made some adjustments that had resulted in the usual white glow taking on a very familiar purple tinge. He hoped that she knew what she was doing because quite a bit was riding on it.

"All systems green," the harried looking chief mechanic said, consulting the tablet that never seemed to leave his hand.

"Are we confident that we won't burn up on launch?"

"Yes," the man said, with a pleasing amount of certainty. "All the projections are within expected parameters."

"Everyone gets their own Iron Man suit in any case," Tony reminded him. "I just don't want to have to listen to Doctor Foster if the launch screws up the machines she's spent weeks building."

"Are we go for launch in three hours?"

Tony consulted his watch and looked around the hangar, where the rest of the team were inspecting the custom suits that he'd had JARVIS build for them using the fabricators in the Tower. "Yes. Open the roof."

The grinding of the massive hydraulic system that controlled the retractable roof when it started up a few minutes later caused a hush to fall across the hangar. "It's time!" Tony announced, and JARVIS started the countdown to launch clock, projecting it onto a bare stretch of wall.

They had whittled it down to four, in the end. Tony and Jane were going as they were the only ones who knew how to fly and repair Icarus, Natasha was going mainly as she refused to be left behind and Steve was going to be the leader.

"Are you sure you don't want to come?" Tony asked Bruce as they walked over the rest of the group. "I made a suit for you."

"And I appreciate it, Tony," Bruce said, smiling. "But the Hulk in space is not the best idea. Worse than the helicarrier and we all saw what he did to that."

"All right there, strongest Avenger," Tony sighed. "I guess I see your logic. Very Vulcan of you."

"You know, I mean... I'm a Scientist. I'd love to go into Space. I just don't want to..."

"Be in a pressurised metal container?" Steve suggested with a wry twist to his lips that made Tony suspect an in joke, which was Not On. Bruce wasn't supposed to have in jokes with Steve.

"Exactly."

JARVIS had been tasked with helping everyone suit up and ensuring Icarus had enough food for a six month mission. Tony was pleased to see the last of the supply containers being carried into the cargo bay by an empty suit as the AI simultaneously arranged for some final adjustments to Natasha's chestplate. Turns out boobs occasionally changed size, who knew?

They would have unlimited water thanks to the top of the range recycling systems that Tony had designed and they would never run out of power. Icarus even had a small hydroponics section, left over from the previous mission objectives. Darcy had been quite excited about it and had been quietly teaching Natasha how it worked when they both had a spare moment, between assisting Pepper and Jane respectively. Anything that kept the Widow occupied was a good thing in Tony's book, and if she did manage to grow some plants, they would lessen the strain on the life support systems.

And hey, if it all went terribly wrong they could Matt Daemon their way to survival.

"Tony, are you ok?" Steve asked, reaching out to rest a hand on his shoulder. "I think you've done a fantastic job pulling this all together in such a short period of time."

Tony nodded, his eyes distracted by the shifting displays JARVIS was projecting. "I just hope it's enough," he said. "Maybe we should have tried harder on the communication angle? We don't know anything about what we're flying into."

"No," Steve said firmly. "The prioritisations were correct. You detected the, ah, AC Universe, you sent some pings through and got nothing back. Probably because no one was listening for them. We all agreed that it would be a waste of time to keep on trying different frequencies on the off chance that one of them would have been monitored. That was a team decision, it's not on you."

The logic was inescapable, and Tony did his best to let himself believe it. Steve was pulling out his earnest face and stronger men than he had succumbed to it in the past. He reached up to pat Steve's hand quickly before stepping away and into the suit that JARVIS was holding ready for him. One of the first things Pepper had done once she arrived on site was install JARVIS in the ship, and although things like the recycling plants had their own subroutines, the primary systems had been given over to him. Knowing that his best creation would be travelling on this journey with him made the whole idea somewhat more bearable.

JARVIS-I would link with the SI satellites once they were in range, and ping mission data packets back once an hour. Once they reached the AC universe he would make sure that everything that they learnt was saved securely, ready for analysis when they got back. "All set, J?" he asked once the helmet had closed around his head.

"Everything appears to be in order, Sir," the AI said calmly. "I have finished the required modifications to Ms Romanoff's suit and all cargo is stowed. Proceeding with final systems checks now."

"All aboard then," Tony decided, sending the command to retract the helmet. "Ok team, time to get settled in."

Steve looked around from where he had been talking to an exhausted looking Sam Wilson. The man really needed to take a break from searching for Steve's best friend the murderbot, the bags under his eyes needed wheels. "You know the tower is open to you, right?" he called over. Sam frowned at him.

"Stark Tower?"

"Yup. You look like you could use some R 'n' R. Take over a guest bedroom, watch a movie, use the state of the art gym and the oversized bathtubs. Then go back out and look for..." he caught Natasha's warning glare just in time. "Sargent Barnes."

"Thank you, Stark, I think I'll take you up on that."

"No problem. Catch a ride with Bruce," he suggested, turning to his fellow scientist. "You're going back there right?"

"And me," Darcy chimed in from where she was carefully braiding Jane's hair. "It'll be a party with rum and pancakes."

"I should probably go find Pepper," he decided.

"Probably," Pepper agreed from directly behind him. If he hadn't been safely ensconced in the Mk 63 he might have jumped. He turned to look into her light blue eyes and remembered that he hated goodbyes for a reason.

"I... Look after them?"

"I always do," she reminded him. "Look after yourself and come back to me."

"That is the plan," he agreed. "I like it, it's a good plan."

Pepper reached up and pressed a kiss against his cheek. "I'll be watching from the command centre. Icarus is ready, Icarus is quite frankly brilliant and you know how much I dislike stroking your ego. Go make history."

"That I certainly can do," he promised. He watched her walk away, high heels clicking against the concrete floor with confidence.

"JARVIS, are the battery banks for launch fully charged?"

"Power is at 99.843%, Sir."

"Good." The others had finished their own goodbyes while he was talking to Pepper. It was time.

Although the Arc reactor generated a continuous supply of power, it didn't provide enough to power the engines up through the atmosphere. Instead, Icarus had several large battery banks that were designed to charge slowly using power that the main systems didn't take up and then discharge quickly to provide the energy needed for take off and course corrections. Once they'd taken off it would be at least 72 hours before they'd be able to take off a second time, assuming minimal use of the other on board systems, but they'd all agreed that that was far preferable to having to find fuel while in another universe.

He really, really hoped that physics worked the same way over there or they might be screwed regardless.

There hadn't been times for bells and whistles, so all four of them were in the basic gold-titanium alloy suits, powered by miniature arc reactors and coated in a special dark blue rubberised finish. Of course, there were a few other amendments given where they were going - he had designed them with additional insulation, CO2 scrubbers and enough oxygen to last twenty four hours. He had decided to set them up with the FRIDAY AI, he was keeping JARVIS for himself. Besides, JARVIS was running the whole ship, he didn't need more suits to think about.

They had some standard NASA issue spacesuits on board as well, for emergencies, but he preferred his own. There just hadn't been enough time to manufacture backups for everyone.

Tony led the way into Icarus, climbed up the narrow internal corridor past the bunks and the life support units, all the way up to the bridge. The HUD projected on the curved reinforced plastic of the 'windshield' was reassuringly familiar. They couldn't see directly outside of course, but there were enough cameras and sensors scattered around the ship to produce a clear picture of what was in front of them.

Icarus had been designed for a team of six, so there were plenty of options. Tony settled himself into the pilot's chair and Jane took the opposite seat, leaving Steve and Natasha their pick of the rest. The plan was for JARVIS to take them up, but they'd all agreed that having Tony in the pilot's position made the most sense. He pulled up the results of the system checks as they came in, wanting to check over the data with his own eyes.

"Jane, there's an irregularity with power charge circuit 107A, will you take a closer look at it?"

"On it," Jane confirmed.

"What's-" Steve started to ask but he was hushed by Natasha.

"Let them work," the redhead advised. "We have two hours before launch."

"I can't identify the issue from here. Switch to a backup circuit?" Jane suggested. "I can take a closer look once we're in space, it's probably a faulty connector that is only showing under high load."

Tony nodded. "It's not worth slowing the launch," he decided. He twisted in his seat to look at Steve. "We have ten charge circuits feeding power from the Arc Reactor to the battery banks, one of them isn't feeding the power as expected. We have spare parts on board and each charge circuit has a backup that we can activate from here. Jane is proposing switching to the backup and trying to fix it once we're in space, I agree, but you're the mission leader so it's ultimately your call."

"All right," Steve said slowly. "It seems like the risk is minimal. I agree, switch to the backup and we'll review later. We have 65 hours scheduled between achieving orbit and attempting the Jump, yes?"

"That's the schedule, we can push it out a little if needed," Jane said without taking her eyes off of the screen in front of her. "Backup is now live and operating within expected parameters."

The final two hours flew by as they worked with JARVIS to be as certain as they could that they weren't going to explode in a fireball of expensive Spaceship components and flailing exo-suits. Tony knew that they were ready when the final countdown started, but that didn't help the butterflies in his gut. In his mind's eye he saw the Chitauri ships, exploding silently in another corner of space and he repressed a shudder.

"Icarus, you are clear for launch," Pepper's familiar voice filled the cockpit.

"Roger that control," Jane answered. "All systems online. JARVIS, go ahead and engage the thrusters on my mark."

"Affirmative, Doctor Foster."

Jane twisted in her seat. "Helmets on," she reminded them. "All good to go?"

"Yes," Natasha and Steve said in unison as they activated their helmets.

"Yeah," Tony breathed as his head was surrounded by the familiar cushioning plates.

"JARVIS, Mark," Jane said clearly.

A vibrating hum began, Icarus shuddering beneath them. Tony forced himself to relax and watch the displays, ready to react to any anomalies. The vibrations increased, making it hard to see, but he dared not close his eyes as the craft began to lift slowly, inching past the retractable roof and then quickly gaining speed.

120 seconds later the vibrations smoothed out, fading into a background hum.

"Congratulations on a successful Launch, Sir," JARVIS said. "Would you like me to inform Ms Potts?"

 

 

I have created a blueprint for Icarus, I thought I'd share it with everyone:

 


	8. Chapter 8 - AC 201

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Duo eavesdrops and Clint builds a cutlery tower, not necessarily in that order.

Duo stared out of the main bridge viewport at the glinting lines of mobile dolls arrayed around Peacemillion and wished with all his heart that he had Deathscythe back. Just for half an hour, that would be more than long enough to deal with the rabble and then they could be on their way.

Howard was in the comms room, had been in there for hours, first demanding answers from their silent attackers and then broadwaving everyone within transmitter distance. They were only a day away from L4 at their usual cruising speed, it wouldn't take Quatre long to muster some support - assuming that he got their message in time. It was supposed to be a quick jaunt to L3 to drop off some cargo and meet up with Trowa's circus buddies, he should have known that nothing in their lives was ever that easy.

After the initial shock had passed and Clint had been given a clean bill of health and new ears by the on board medic, who had been amusingly horrified by the state of Clint's eardrums, life had returned to normal, or as normal as it ever got. They'd finished up their business with L4 on schedule, said their goodbyes to Quatre and left with Heero and Wufei as additional passengers for the onward voyage.

When they'd first brought Shuttle IV-DS-80691 on board, a standard salvage alert had been broadcast on the net, as was usual when the Sweepers came across something as large and potentially valuable as a ship. Before they'd left they'd checked for responses and hadn't seen any, so Duo had added a note that further enquiries could be directed to the L3 cluster just before they left. It wasn't like Peacemillion's route was a secret, they logged their flight plans properly, but Duo had a gut feeling that the unwelcome party had something to do with IV-DS-80691.

Howard emerged from the comms room looking grim, white hair sticking up in tufts around the sunglasses he had pushed onto the top of his head.

"Did they say what they want?"

"They're the Barton Foundation apparently, and they're not being all that clear, but they want at least the Shuttle and possibly Clint and Trowa," Howard signed. "I managed to get through to Winner and this is extremely illegal - but what else is new. They don't have a legal claim to the shuttle at all."

"Maybe they know what's on it and they're planning on pirating the technology," Duo suggested.

"Whatever they may be planning, they're not getting it," Howard said firmly. "Ripping holes in the fabric of the universe is not something that should be passed around."

"I completely agree, but it might be too late for that," Duo warned him. "The rat is out of the bag."

"The cat," Howard said absently, rubbing a kink out of his neck.

"What?"

"The cat is out of the bag."

"Huh. On L2 it was always a rat. Anyways, I'm going to go find Clint and Trowa. How long do we have to make a decision?"

"Three hours, and we're stuck here until then. It's not like this ship is filled with combat suits anymore, I don't like our odds. Quatre is checking something, he'll get back to me within an hour he said."

"All right, I'll try to be back before he calls," Duo promised, setting a timer on his watch for 45 minutes.

Trowa and Clint were sitting side by side in the canteen where the dimension-hopping newcomer was working his way through a large stack of waffles. Duo detoured past the coffee machine and joined them once he had a steaming cup of caffeination in his hand.

"I take it you've been briefed?" he asked first.

"Yes. Howard sent over screenshots of the Barton Foundation members who contacted us to see if I recognised them. The old man definitely looks like Dekim Barton from what I remember, but I only saw him twice."

"The Barton Foundation financed the Gundams, right?" Clint asked, taking a sip from his own coffee. The newcomer scraped up the last of his syrup with his final bite of waffle and then began to build a strange artpiece out of clean cutlery, balancing knives and forks at improbable angles.

Duo shrugged. "I was a street rat, I have no idea where the money came from. Tro?"

"From what I remember the Foundation employed the five scientists after the death of the first Heero Yuy," Trowa nodded. "What's the plan?"

"Howie has been in contact with Quat and we have confirmation that this shit is illegal, which we knew anyway. The foundation has no legal claim to the ship. They're not the registered owners, and if the owners don't come forward it's Sweeper property - I think that happens in a couple of days now. They definitely don't get the two of you."

"Good to know that's not an option," Clint said, something heavy in his gaze. He caught Duo's eye and winced a little. "I've just... In the other world, I sometimes had to do things for the sake of the mission." He carefully set a spoon on top of his creation and sat back to admire it.

"No missions here," Trowa said, reaching over to clap Clint on the shoulder.

"I hate to be the pushy one, but have you thought about what you want to do next?" Duo asked. "Are you planning on staying with us or with the Circus? I know you wanted to contact the other dimension, for which you will need scientist geek types that we absolutely do not have on board. The Preventers has a Research section I think, Heero and Wufei might be willing to help. Heero owes Trowa several favours for saving his ridiculous life."

Clint groaned dramatically and slumped so that his forehead rested on the table, narrowly missing his cutlery tower and causing it to wobble alarmingly. Duo was quite impressed when nothing actually fell. "I don't know. I have skills, but they're rather specific. I could probably go be a preventer agent, I was chatting with Yuy and Chang about it. It's all rather... Ok, so when I landed in the other universe I was taken in by a black ops organisation there and turned into an agent while they tried to figure out how to find this universe and get a message through. It feels like a repeat, to join preventers while Scientists there work on the same problem."

"Did you get a secret codename?" Duo asked.

As he had hoped, the irreverent question made Clint crack a smile. "Hawkeye."

Duo had not expected Trowa to snort coffee out of his nose, that was an unexpected bonus. He grinned at the pair of them as Clint patted Trowa on the back. "You... You used your Circus title as your codename?" Trowa gasped once he had wiped the coffee from his face.

"I took the 'Amazing' out, it seemed like overkill," Clint grinned. "I had an awesome custom bow collection for missions, it was so cool. Some of my arrows exploded, some had tracking chips."

Duo ignored the way Trowa rolled his eyes. "Explosive arrow heads? That's amazing, we should compare notes some time."

"Duo is widely considered to be the demolition expert of the Gundam Pilots," Trowa deadpanned. "However I do believe that we have bigger problems right now gentlemen. Perhaps we can focus on the hostile force we are currently facing?"

"Killjoy," Duo pouted, folding his arms. "All right, Q-ball is looking into getting us some backup, Worst comes to the worst we rip the machine out of the side of the shuttle and tell them we found it like that. It'll be hard to get a MS in there to do the ripping without them noticing."

"I'll go get all the documents out of it and wipe the hard drives," Trowa decided. "Clint, go with Duo. You said you got training in tactics at this Shield place, which makes you the most qualified person on this ship to direct a conflict, plus you don't know how to pilot a suit."

"They didn't cover Space battles, seeing as that Universe has barely made it to the moon," Clint grumbled, but he downed the last of his coffee and disassembled his sculpture by removing one spoon and watching with glee as it fell apart onto the tray he'd used as a base.

Duo shook his head in awe as Clint took off for the kitchen, whistling cheerfully, before returning his attention to Trowa. "We'll be on the bridge when you're done. Stash the paperwork under your bunk and come find us."

"Will do," Trowa nodded. He started to walk away but then hesitated. "I wanted to... Thank you."

Duo frowned. "For what? He saw Clint approach out of the corner of his eye and gestured to him to stop. Whatever it was Trowa was trying to say, it was clear to him that it wasn't easy to put into words.

"For helping. For believing in me." Trowa turned and fixed his green eyes firmly on Duo's own. "For being a friend, not some... Coworker that I happen to share a rather ridiculous past with. Thank you."

"Ah, that," Duo coughed out. "Well... You're welcome. If my old pal Solo somehow rises from the grave and needs a hand I'll anticipate your full support."

Trowa nodded solemnly. "You'll have it." He half turned away before hesitating again. "Who is Solo?"

Duo shook his head. "We don't have time for that story now, T-man. I'll tell it some other day. Maybe next time we're Planet-side with fresh fruit."

One of the things Duo like best about Trowa was the way that he just accepted things. No further questions, no judging Duo's own peculiar brand of crazy. He just nodded and headed out to the Hangar to deal with the shuttle.

"Everything ok?" Clint asked. "Seemed like a, uh, meaningful conversation."

Duo shrugged. "Contrary to what you may have assumed given the way we've been since you, ah, landed, Tro and I weren't all that close before this whole thing started," he explained as he lead the way to the bridge. "We fought sort of on the same side during the War, he accepted Howie's offer to stay with Peacemillion after the whole final battle thing - did he tell you about that?"

"Extreme bare bones," Clint grinned. "Trowa was never much of a one for words, but I could always talk enough for both of us."

"Well, here we were cleaning up space and earning an honest wage - for me it was the first time in my damn life I think - and we just both sort of got on with it. We worked different shifts so when we arrived somewhere where there was a mutual acquaintance to meet with we went together, but that was sort of it as far as hanging out went. It's not that I didn't consider him a friend, of course I did, but now I think that maybe he didn't." He glanced up at Clint, took in the confused look that confronted him and groaned. "I'm not being clear. Sorry. Ah, I got the impression just then that Trowa is surprised and grateful that I gave enough of a shit to help him with this whole mess - we didn't know that you were alive, we were just trying to find out what happened to you."

"Trowa never takes his friends for granted," Clint said quietly. "It's one of the things that makes him such a good one. Friend, that is."

The bridge was ominously quiet when they arrived, and three people had their ear glued to the door to the comms room. Duo immediately joined them while Clint strolled forwards, hands in the pockets of his ship suit, to survey the positions of the enemy fleet surrounding them.

"Within 30 minutes," Quatre was saying. "But they have limited firepower on board. Proper reinforcements will take six hours and we don't have that, but Preventers have dispatched them anyway. Une also sent through a sign off allowing Heero and Wufei to commandeer two of your suits, so you're covered there."

"Thanks Winner, I appreciate the help," Howard replied. There was a soft tone that meant that the transmission had ended, so the three eavesdroppers quickly returned to their stations and did their best to look busy. Duo joined Clint, looking down at the mass of red dots that represented their attackers on the star chart. The blond was holding a small purple plastic device in his hands, twisting it over and over.

"Do we have back up?" he asked.

"Some," Duo sighed. "Looks like the Cavalry can't get here in time, but we get some reinforcements in half an hour. We'll probably still be outnumbered but that's nothing new."

  
The promised reinforcements turned out to be the entire Maganac Corps who had been on their way from Earth to L4 and had detoured to help them out.

"Master Duo! It is good to see you again," Rashid's deep voice boomed from the speakers in the comms room.

"Good to see you too Sir, thank you for the assistance."

"We were in the area," Abdul joked from behind Rashid's shoulder.

"We could not stand by and let such injustice occur, especially not to an ally," Rashid proclaimed. "We have thirty six suits currently operational and at your disposal."

"Great, let me introduce you to our tactical commander for the purposes of this mission." Duo looked up, spotted Clint in the doorway and reached out to drag him in front of the camera. "This is Clint, he's had more formal training than the rest of us former felons so he gets to be in charge."

"Nice to make your acquaintance, Master Clint," Rashid said.

"Uh, As-salam alaykom," Clint said, prompting a delighted laugh from the Maganacs.

"Wa Alykom As-salam!" they chorused.

"I like him, he can stay," Abdul declared. He was promptly shushed by Rashid.

"How would you like us to arrange our forces, Master Clint?"

"For now you're sheltered by the sheer bulk of Peacemillion, given that your craft isn't large and the trajectory of your approach I think it likely that they don't know you're here," Clint said. "They haven't radioed us either which supports that theory. I'd like you to stay out of sight for now, if possible split into at least two forces and appear from behind the wings when they open fire on us. Does that plan tie in with your current capabilities or are there other factors you need me to take into account?"

"No, the plan is acceptable," Rashid confirmed.

With time ticking down, the Peacemillion became a hive of activity as MS Pilots suited up, mechanics performed as many pre-battle checks as they had time for and Clint drilled the bridge crew on his basic battle plan, just in case. Duo joined Trowa, Heero and Wufei in Hangar 1, where his modified Taurus was kept.

"I would give a lot to have Nataku with us for this battle," Wufei called across the hangar.

"I'd even take Sandrock," Duo sighed. "And he was always particularly rubbish when it to long distance anything. Those guns could barely take out a leo."

"The shotels were efficient," Heero grunted.

Debating the pros and cons of the various Gundams while they ran systems checks was oddly nostalgic. Duo perched on the edge of the cockpit, laptop warming his knees from the space-chill that always seemed to permeate Hangar 1, while he ran the code and they chewed through the same old arguments. Someone had helpfully projected a countdown on the wall of the hangar so they even knew how long they had to get ready - not enough time as per usual, but enough to get all of the critical checks done. He'd gone into Space will less preparation on more occasions than he liked to recall in any case.

The MS made a pathetically small group in front of the Peacemillion's length when they did emerge. They gathered around the door to Hangar J, which happened to be completely empty, in the hope that whoever was directing things on the other side would be stupid enough to fall for the ploy. Older officer types often did prove themselves to be complete morons in Duo's experience, so there was a reasonable chance that the ploy would work.

He braced himself for battle, weapon powered up, and watched the glints of metal against the stars that represented the enemy. They were hanging there, silent and menacing, but he knew that they would be quick to fire once the order was given.

A crackle on the radio preceded Clint's voice, the blond sounding a little dazed. "Uh, Pilots? I have... We have some unexpected backup."

"We do?" Duo asked, studying his instrument panel. "I can't see anything on the scans."

"No, they wouldn't show up, it's, ah, the Avengers. Some of them."

"The who now?!"

"The people he was fighting with in his Universe," Trowa interrupted to explain.

"Right. And how do they propose to help us?" Wufei demanded. "Did they bring some sort of super-weapon?"

"Something like that, Sunshine," said an unfamiliar voice, warm and amused.

Something flashed across Duo's main viewscreen, a blink of red and gold. He quickly played back the suit's main video feed on a spare screen, and blinked in astonishment as the image resolved. "Is that a tiny mobile suit?"

"That's Iron Man," Clint told him, the smile obvious from his voice. "I think you guys will get on."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, we're nearly at the end of this crazy adventure, one more chapter to go after this one! I hope you're all enjoying the wild ride.


	9. Chapter 9 - Finale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Space battles and decisions

Clint stood on the bridge of the Peacemillion, uncomfortably aware that the lives of all the crew and two additional Gundam Pilots were in his hands. He kept on being distracted by the quality of the sounds around him and distraction was deadly, he needed to focus. Medical technology had progressed even further in the years that he had been away, and both his ears were functioning at 100%, according to the doctor who had been overly distressed at the state of them when he'd arrived. It was more than he had dared to hope for, and he would never forget the easy way in which Duo insisted on the treatment, asking nothing from Clint in return.

It had been impressed upon him again and again since his arrival that the crew of the Peacemillion were a family, working towards a common goal and sharing resources freely. Clint wanted, more than anything, to help and be a part of it; to make his own contribution to their lives as they had changed his so completely. Duo was an easy guy to be around, Howard was like a benevolent Uncle running the operation in a way that reminded him of Coulson and Trowa was just as Clint remembered him; a silent, supportive presence who treasured his few friendships and would do anything for people he cared about.

He wasn't sure that there was really a place for him on Peacemillion, not a long term one in any case. What use had they for a Spy or an Assassin? Still, Yuy and Chang had told him a fair bit about the Preventers and their goal to preserve the fragile Peace, and that was certainly a more worthwhile mission than any he had carried out for Shield. The situation at hand was something that he could help with, and he just hoped that with the backup from the Manganacs they could make the Barton Foundation back down, or at least hold their own for long enough for the Preventers force to arrive.

The systems and displays surrounding him were unfamiliar, but strategy he knew, and Chang had pulled him to one side and explained the capabilities of the suits on board in terms that he could relate to. He'd been surprised at how well informed the man was, and perhaps a little slow to hide it as Chang had favoured him with a wolfish grin.

"I was once a scholar, then a soldier, and now a peacekeeper," Chang had explained. "I see the world a little differently than my companions."

"I'm grateful for the help," Clint had replied honestly. He wished that Chang was with him on the bridge now, his dark eyes making sense of the data streaming in, but the Pilot had clearly been itching to don a suit and wade into the imminent Space Battle.

The countdown said that they had ten minutes to go, and Howard was sitting in the comms room already, waiting for the call from the Barton Foundation. The old man was determined not to give in to the bullying, and Clint had to respect that. Howard caught him looking and peered at him over the top of his sunglasses.

"Even if you weren't a factor we would be right here," the old man told him, abandoning his seat to walk over and pat Clint heavily on the shoulder. "You just give us a better chance at victory with the strategies in your head.

"In position, Master Clint," Rashid reported, his deep voice a little distorted. Clint adjusted the headset he wore and acknowledged the message.

He looked up at Howard and nodded. "I'll do my best. I know that the machine needs to be somewhere safe, it's too easy to abuse. I trust that the Preventers is the best place for it, if you say so. I mean, I trust your judgement."

Howard grinned at him. "And so you should, I - what's that?"

Clint followed his pointing finger to the bright purple hearing aid that must have fallen out of his pocket onto the floor. It was flashing, the little LED shining brightly in the shadows under the lip of the console unit. "What the... I won't be able to put it in, not after the surgery they did. Here, take this for a sec," he requested, passing his headset to Howard and grabbing a fresh one, which he tuned to the frequency that Tony favoured, the frequency that their comms were tuned to as standard.

His knees turned to water and he collapsed backwards into the chair as JARVIS's familiar voice came through the earphones, repeating a standard hail.

"JARVIS, this is Hawkeye," he said thickly. "How did you manage to get a signal through?" The hail cut out and he listened to hissing static, his breath caught in his throat.

"Birdbrain!" Tony's cheerful voice rang in his ears. "We came to check on you, of course. Can't leave our favourite Archer running around another universe without a way to call home. Uh, the long rang scans seemed to indicate that you're in a spot of bother?"

"What, you mean you're actually here?" Clint sputtered. "How?!"

"Because I'm brilliant of course. Ow! Not that I didn't have help." Clint could just about hear someone in the background grumbling about Tony's ego, which seemed par for the course. The voice was vaguely familiar but he couldn't place it. "Anyway," Tony continued. "The ridiculously large ship your signal is coming from seems to be being intimidated? Mind filling us in?"

"There's a rogue faction trying to steal the ship with the dimension hopping device on it, we have... About two minutes before they call us and we tell them that we're not handing it over. It's a small ship inside the gigantic ship I'm on. Peacemillion."

"Very well, I think we can help with that. What frequency are you using? I'll have JARVIS patch us in."

Clint reeled off the numbers, trusting the AI to catch them, and held out his hand to Howard for the other headset. "They're about to call, you'd better get in there," he advised the Captain. "We have some unexpected backup. Might be enough to make a real difference."

"I'm offended Legolas, I'm always enough to make a huge difference," Tony snarked. Clint could make out Guns 'n' Roses playing softly in the background.

"Wait, Iron Man, who is we?"

"Cap, Widow and Lady Jane," Tony revealed. "The ship is called Icarus, I can't wait to show her to you."

Clint fitted the original headset back over his ears and adjusted the microphone to tell the waiting pilots that they had some unexpected backup. Tony's ship - Icarus - suddenly appeared on the radar scan, a blip sheltering behind the bulk of Peacemillion, as the Manganac craft was doing.

With shaking hands, Clint opened the channel to the rest of the suits to tell them that they had more backup, unable to stop the smile stretching his cheeks as Tony took over the conversation, as usual. The world around him felt unreal, colours too sharp and bright as his brain tried to process through the shock. They had come for him, somehow, they had crossed dimensions just to check that he was all right.

The glaring omission in the short conversation was nagging at him. Tony had been very careful not to say that they had come to bring him home, but it had to have been a factor. He'd been making plans under the assumption that it wouldn't be possible, that perhaps reaching out to send a message that he was safe would be the best that they could manage, but now everything was different. He probably had a chance to go back, to fight alongside the Avengers and continue living the life that he had built for himself. Now that he knew that it was an option, did he want to take it?

Howard opened the door to the comms room and stuck his head through. "It's showtime. They don't seem to have noticed the back up. They're not very fond of me right now."

"We expect the enemy to engage any moment now," Clint reported to the waiting pilots and Avengers. "Please wait until they start shooting to reveal yourselves, Manganacs. Tony, if you've brought space-worthy suits then you're probably too small for them to target easily, they're used to fifty foot tall mecha. See if you can get in close and disable their guns."

"Roger that, Hawkeye," Steve Roger's calm voice sounded over the comms. "Iron Man and I are suited up and ready for action, Widow and the Doctor are staying on board Icarus."

Clint wanted to ask when exactly Steve had learnt to fly an Iron Man suit, but now really wasn't the time.

"Who was that? He sounded ridiculously reassuring," Duo asked. "I'm also finding your codenames hilarious by the way."

"His is Captain America," Clint told them, expecting the wave of chuckling that followed. "In his defence he didn't get to pick it."

"Focus, 02," Yuy snapped. "Heat Sensors indicate that the large ship is priming it's weaponry to fire."

"All power to forward shields," Clint instructed the bridge crew. "We can worry about our arses if they manage to flank us."

As Yuy had predicted, the larger ship opened fire and the mobile dolls began to move in attack formations. Scant seconds later, they started to explode as the Sweepers and the Manganacs opened fire.

"Cap, Iron Man, if you can take out the communications array on the big ship the mobile dolls will shut down," Clint advised as he studied the battlefield. "The bit with all the dishes."

"I know what a communications array looks like," Tony complained. "Still, our resident OAP probably appreciated the help."

The two suits were small and made up of material foreign to this universe, as Clint had suspected they didn't show up on any of the instruments and amongst the firy explosions they were hard to spot. Clint tracked them where he could, watching as they wove their way through the clouds of dolls protecting the ship, a familiar blue light shining from boots and gauntlets as they danced towards the target.

"Shit those things are fast," Howard said right behind him, making Clint jump a little. "What are they called again?"

"Tony calls them Iron Man suits," Clint muted the microphone to explain. "He built them, they're not exactly common in the other universe. Tony is a bit of a special case."

"If they can take out the communications, the bastards will have to retreat," Howard predicted. "Any casualties so far?"

"No fatalities. Three damaged suits have been brought back into the hangar," another crew member whose name Clint hadn't managed to catch reported. "Defence is looking pretty good, all things considered. Manganacs have yet to take any damages."

"I almost think whoever programmed the dolls hasn't noticed them," Clint admitted as he scanned the screens. "Or is terrible at adjusting a strategy. They're not taking a lot of fire at all, and what is being sent at the main group is heavily patterned and easy to dodge."

"Main shield at 70%, it's holding up well."

"It should, Maxwell gave it an update three months ago."

Clint had to remind himself to breathe as the small glints that represented Steve and Tony reached the communications array.

"This may be the shortest space battle ever, if your friends can pull this off," Howard muttered as he peered forward.

"They can pull it off," Clint assured him. "It's sort of what we do."

The relief when they did just that was overwhelming and it took a long minute before Clint was able to do more than sit in his chair and grin at the jubilant Sweepers around him, shaking a little from the adrenaline overload. Once their main method of attacking had been taken out, the Barton Foundation ships beat a hasty retreat in the direction of L3 and as Howard had predicted, the battle was over. Without a control signal, the mobile dolls were as dangerous as space debris and it took around a quarter of an hour for the piloted suits to turn them into slag - once Steve and Tony were safely out of the firing line.

The Sweepers only celebrated for a few short minutes, and then it was all hands on deck, so to speak, as they coordinated getting the suits back into the hangars and carried out some minor repairs.

"I'll go tell Winner that further reinforcements aren't required, but I expect that the Preventers will turn up regardless." Howard shook his head, but didn't seem overly put out if the large grin splitting his cheeks was any indication.

"Maybe they'll take the shuttle with them?" Clint suggested. "I mean, it's best it gets taken apart and recycled before any corrupt organisations get hold of it."

"We'll hold position here until they arrive in any case," Howard decided. "I'll thank the Manganacs for their assistance and invite them on board. I suppose your, ah, travelling friends can come aboard as well. They did save our skins after all."

"Thanks Captain," Clint said sincerely. "Which hangar should I direct them to? I don't know how big their ship is."

"Put them in G, it'll be big enough," Howard assured him.

Clint made the required changes to the shielding to allow the Avengers to dock and called Tony over the comms to talk him through it. "I'll meet you down there," he promised once they were inside. "Don't leave the dock without me, ok?"

"Wouldn't dream of it Legolas," Tony assured him. "I'm sure the dock will have more than enough to keep me occupied! Seriously, this thing is huge, how do you get around? It must take an hour to walk from one end to the other!"

"We're all very fit spacemen," Clint told him. "This is a scrapper vessel, there are hundreds of people on board and they all have their own preferred way of getting about. Some even have bicycles."

"Fine, don't tell me," Tony retorted, not believing him. Clint grinned and decided not to press the point. Tony would see for himself soon enough.

*

It was more than a little surreal to see the Avengers on the Peacemillion, but Clint didn't have long to think about the contrast because a furious Russian assassin threw herself at him as soon as he got through the airlock.

"Nat!" he said happily, swinging her round in a move that he usually wouldn't have dared. "They fixed my ears! No more hearing aids!"

She blinked at him in astonishment, whatever she had been planning on saying flown out of her head. "That's amazing!"

"What? How? I need to see the med bay," Tony demanded, pushing past Natasha to take Clint's head in his hands and peer into his left ear canal.

"Never mind that, how on earth are you here?" Clint asked, pushing the engineer away gently. "You built a ship that can cross dimensions?"

"Just to this one and back, we think," Doctor Jane Foster said as she exited Icarus, her presence answering a lot of Clint's questions. "Coming after you, well, it was the thing to do. Although we will understand if-"

"Not the right time Doc," Tony interrupted her. "We should meet our hosts, I'm looking forward to communicating with beings from another universe."

"You've been communicating with me for years," Clint grumbled, turning to lead the way out of the hangar, only to find the door blocked with four Gundam Pilots. "Ah."

Trowa was first in, striding straight to Clint's side and staring impassively at Natasha, who narrowed her eyes in response. "Natasha Romanov," he said after a moment.

Natasha's eyes widened and flickered to Clint. "You told him about me," she whispered.

Clint shrugged at her and offered a sheepish smile. "Nat, this is Trowa, we go way back. Tro, this is Nat, my partner in the other universe. Mayhem causing partner, not romantic partner, she doesn't do that."

"Nice to meet you," Natasha said, offering her hand to shake. After a long moment of contemplation, Trowa reached out and shook it firmly.

"Great!" Duo enthused, making Clint jump a little. "Now that the awkwardness is done, I want to talk to the man with the suits. That's you, right?" he asked, Tony, grinning from ear to ear. "Show me pretty pretty please, and I'll let you look around my modified Taurus?"

Tony glanced at Clint, who shrugged. "It's a fair exchange, you'll probably learn a lot from each other. Steve should probably talk with Heero and Wufei, they represent a peacekeeping organisation in this universe."

Duo whistled as Steve nodded and darted forward to poke his bicep with a long finger. "I think your muscles have muscles."

Steve looked somewhat like a deer in headlines as the braided pilot leered up at him, and seemed reassured when Heero shoved him aside. "You're making the man uncomfortable, Maxwell!" he chastised him. "Kindly remember that not everyone is as used to you as we are. Heero Yuy, Preventer Agent," he introduced himself, holding out a hand to shake. "This is my partner, Wufei Chang."

"Steve Rogers," Steve said, returning the handshake. "Did you introduce yourselves in the Western way?"

Heero blinked in confusion as Wufei smiled and stepped forward. "You are very polite," the Pilot turned Preventer said approvingly. "Yuy and Chang are our surnames. Would you prefer to meet on your ship or shall I show you to a meeting room?"

Clint left them to it, confident that Steve would get on well enough with the two preventers. Duo and Tony were already deep in a discussion over an iron man gauntlet that Tony had been coaxed into taking out and Clint was sure that it wouldn't be long before Tony was showing off all of Icarus. That left him with Natasha, still quietly seething if the glint in her eyes was anything to go by, and Trowa.

"Let's get some coffee?" he suggested, wanting to break the tension. Coffee was the first thing that came to mind.

"Some things never change," Natasha grumbled. "Lead the way."

Walking through the spartan corridors with Natasha and Trowa was more surreal than he had anticipated. It didn't help that his two friends wouldn't stop giving each other the side eye.

"ты русский, да?" Trowa said quietly.

"да." Natasha replied, narrowing her eyes at him.

Clint regretted not keeping up with his Russian as they started to speak faster than he could understand, rattling out rapid fire questions and answers. By the time they reached the canteen and joined the line for coffee, the two seemed to have reached an understanding.

"All right, ястреб," Natasha said, patting him on the head. "This is the fanciest coffee machine I have ever seen in my life, and I live with Tony Stark."

"The ship runs on coffee," Trowa said seriously, a twinkle in his visible green eye. "If you like it black and strong you want program 637."

"Sounds good to me," Natasha agreed, stepping aside to allow Trowa to punch in the numbers for her. Clint programmed his usual, strong with powdered milk and sugar, and contemplated stopping by the food counter for a cookie. Still, a lot of the crew seemed to have the same idea and the line was pretty long. He resigned himself to an afternoon without snacks and followed Trowa to a free table.

They both looked at him expectantly as he sat down and Clint suppressed the urge to wince. "I know I have a decision to make now," he said defensively. "I just wasn't expecting to have to make it, you know?"

"I had a message back from the Circus just before Barton made his move," Trowa revealed. Clint sat up straighter, ignoring Natasha's frown. "It's not good news."

"Just tell me," Clint begged. "Don't draw this out, please."

"Your Aunt died during the war," Trowa said quickly. "She did not suffer."

Clint stared at his hands for a long moment, wrapped around the warm plastic of the coffee mug. His Aunt had become a slightly fuzzy figure in his memories. A warm smile, a cool hand on his forehead when he was sick, the scent of cheap chocolate powder and oranges. He had been looking forward to seeing her again, and knowing that she wasn't there made the Circus a suddenly colder option.

"They still remember you," Trowa continued when it became clear that Clint wasn't going to say anything. "And they say that you're welcome to join them, if you want to."

Clint looked helplessly at Nat for guidance, grasping for their familiar partnership as uncertainty gripped him, but the redhead shook her head gently at him. "I cannot make this choice for you, ястреб," she said sadly. "There is room for you on Icarus of course, but it is your decision."

Clint shrugged. "We don't know what will happen though, do we?" he asked. "Stark and Maxwell could be figuring out a cross dimensional phone line right now, or the trip back could be the last one."

"Or we could explode," Natasha agreed.

"The phone thing sounds nice," Trowa interjected. "You know, for keeping in touch. You've made some useful friends over in the new universe, the firepower is impressive."

"That wasn't even the full toybox," Natasha said with a negligent wave of her hand. "Although I admit that Space is a new terrain for us. It would be expediant to find a way to call in a.. Mobile Suit, are they? For backup if we are attacked from space."

"Duo Maxwell would think that that is a fantastic opportunity, although I don't know how the Preventers would react."

"Exactly how much power does that organisation hold?"

"I'm not sure how this helps me decide," Clint interrupted, taking a swig of his coffee before it cooled too far.

Natasha smiled at him. "Why did you decide to join the Avengers rather than remaining a Specialist?" she asked.

"Uh... Because it was the right thing to do? Because... It was good. I was working for good. Saving people." He looked at Trowa, wishing that the parting looming over their heads wasn't necessary, because answering Natasha's question had made his final decision all too clear to him.

Trowa nodded at him. "I think you know where you can work the most good," he said quietly. "You will always be my brother, and I am proud of the man that you have become."

"I won't be an Avenger forever," Clint blurted out. "I'm human, mortal. One day I'll have to retire."

A faint smile curved Trowa's lips. "And when that day comes, there will be a place for you here," he promised.

  
THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for coming with me on this crazy crossover journey! Apologies for the bad science. ;) I had a lot of fun writing this, although at times it was a struggle! Still, I'm pleased with the way it's come together. 
> 
> Russian:
> 
> ты русский, да  
> You are Russian, yes?  
> да  
> Yes  
> Ястреб  
> Hawk
> 
> And my usual end plug - if you enjoyed this story, please consider checking out [My Great Escape](https://www.amazon.co.uk/My-Great-Escape-Kirsty-Olliffe-ebook/dp/B01BDBD7U4/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=my+great+escape&qid=1569228926&s=gateway&sr=8-1), my novel, which is available in paperback and kindle format on Amazon. Or if it doesn't look like your cup of tea, buy it for a relative for Xmas!


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